Did You Hear That?
by WRTRD
Summary: Set during 5 x13, 'Recoil," after Beckett saves Senator Bracken from a car bomb. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

She once asked Castle which of his senses he thought was best and he answered, "Spidey, of course." He was kidding, but he wasn't. It's part of what makes him such a good mystery writer, and a great partner.

Hers is hearing, figuratively as well as literally. Figuratively in that she hears people well: she's a good listener, willing to sit through long, uncomfortable periods of silence until the other person–who is often on the other side of a table in an interrogation room–finally says exactly the wrong thing. Which, for Beckett, is the right thing. But she also hears well literally, not just faint sounds that others miss, but ones that are elusive. Hard to identify or isolate. She doesn't make her living as a musician, but she had years of piano lessons; she plays the guitar; she sings, and she has perfect pitch.

Which is why, on a cold night in early February while she's standing on a street corner, she's turning her head, listening. Less than two hours earlier she had put her career on the line by ordering the evacuation of the hotel where Senator William Bracken had been about to give a major speech. She had been sure there was a bomb there, a bomb that would have taken the life of the man responsible for the taking of her mother's. Much as she despised him, she had been trying to protect him. It was her job. But the bomb squad had found nothing, and Bracken had just threatened her with trying to ruin him by keeping him off the stage. "You have overplayed your hand," he'd said, all but spitting in her face. "And I am going to bury you." He'd stormed off, and she'd just barely stopped herself from calling out, "The way you buried my mom?" She and Castle had spoken quietly with each other for a moment, until he'd said, "Kate, it's over."

But it's not. It's not. It can't be. And then she hears it, hears something nearby that he doesn't. It's a metal-on-metal sound that's sparking a memory. What is it? It's rhythmic, almost perfectly so. Click, click. Pause. Click, click. Pause. What the hell is it? Oh, Jesus. A chill runs through her that has nothing to do with the winter wind that's found its way under her leather jacket. The sound is coming from a lighter, a Zippo lighter; it's identical to the one that they'd heard on the voicemail of their vic, a young woman who had been helping Bracken with some legislation, moments before she'd been murdered. Son of a bitch.

She turns sharply to the source of the sound and in the dark can just make out Bracken's chauffeur opening and closing a Zippo. Click, click. Pause. Click, click. Pause. Again and again and again. She runs toward him, as fast as she's run toward anything in her life. The solid mass of the Senator, hunched angrily in his heavy overcoat, arms held stiffly out from his sides, is between her and the homicidal chauffeur. She sees him pocket the lighter, get out a detonator, and depress a switch, and at the same moment she leaps onto Bracken and knocks him to the pavement. As they're falling, the bomb explodes, sending the politician's shiny town car into pieces, huge and small. Doors, smashed mirrors, the windshield in bits. Flames and smoke erupt, and she shouts to Castle to follow the driver. It's the last thing she says as the car's hood, which has rocketed skyward, lands heavily on her back. One of the seats pins down her left leg.

Fifteen minutes later Castle, who had been busy chasing and capturing the driver and so hadn't seen what had happened to Beckett, is standing shakily next to an ambulance that is waiting to take her to the hospital. He'd spoken briefly to Bracken, after the firefighters had helped him up. The man has nothing but a bruise on his left cheek. "I wouldn't have done it, you know," Castle had said, jaw clamped. "What she did. Saved your goddamn useless life. I'd have stood and watched. And in my head I'd have been cheering." He's simultaneously numb and raw, surprised that he'd managed to form words at all.

With infinite care, the rescue team is moving Kate onto a gurney. She's unmoving, and apparently unconscious. The damage to her body is so severe that he concentrates on her face, which miraculously looks almost untouched, except for a slight cut above her right eye. He curses his cowardice.

"I have to ride with her," he says as she's rolled into the back of the bus. It's the first thing he's said since the team began working on Kate. He's mentally calling it a bus, the cop term for an ambulance, because ambulance sounds worse, ramps up his anxiety. "I have to go with her. She's my partner. I have to be there. She's NYPD. You know that, right? Detective. She's a detective. Homicide. A homicide detective. She can't die. If she dies this is a homicide. Don't let her die." He's vaguely aware that he's babbling, and he doesn't care.

"Let him in," Joe Taylor, an EMT he's met several times, says. He lifts his head and adds, "Hop in, Castle. Just give us room back there to do our work, okay?"

"Okay. Room. Okay. Yes."

He's jammed into the corner, his fingers just able to touch her hair. Some of it has been singed by the fire; he can smell it, and feel the spiky ends. It will grow back. It will be fine. Her beautiful hair will be fine. He'll wash it for her with the best shampoo ever made. Her hair won't smell of gasoline. It will smell of freesia. She loves freesia. If there's no such thing as freesia shampoo, he'll get someone to make it for her.

The bus is going too fast. It's jostling her. It's not going fast enough. Why aren't they at the hospital yet? She needs to be at the hospital. He forces himself to glance down at her leg, sees the broken tibia that has broken through her skin. It's obscene. It's sickening. He's going to be sick. He can't be sick.

They've reached the ambulance bay, thank God. Now he's inside, running behind her, already feeling his heart and gut clench at the familiarity of this. The scene is so like that of 21 months ago, when he was following her gurney down the same hospital corridor, wondering if she would speak another word, breathe another breath, see another day. But awful as that was, her shooting at Montgomery's funeral, this is worse. Because now she is fully part of his body and soul. There is no intimacy that they haven't shared. And in minutes she may be gone from her life and his, from her father's, from that of everyone she loves and everyone who loves her.

Suddenly, Lanie is here, just as she had been before. After the shooting she'd climbed up on the gurney and beseeched her friend not to die, over and over. This time she materializes next to him, he has no idea from where, grabs his hand, and runs with him. When the ER doors open and swallow up Kate and the EMTs, they're shut out. He tilts against the wall, slides down to the floor, puts his head on his knees, and begins to sob.

"Castle. Castle. Castle, honey, get up." How long has he been here on the blue and white linoleum? He feels a tug on his arm, and turns to his left. It's Lanie. "We need to go be with the others."

What others? "Who?"

"Javi. Ryan. Gates. Everyone. Come on, there's a room for us."

He pushes himself up off the floor, scrapes his hands down his face, and asks what he can't bear to ask. "Is she?"

"She's alive."

"She's alive?"

"In surgery. It's going to be a while before we know anything. Come on." When she takes his hand again he realizes how small it is, much smaller than Kate's. Kate has long, slender fingers. More than once since last May he has wondered what size her ring finger is, how he could find out without asking her.

He skids and stumbles down the hall with Lanie, who leads him to a quiet room with a table and an assortment of chairs. He's startled to see on the wall clock that it's almost midnight. There's a table under it with a coffeemaker, two stacks of paper cups, a box of stirrers, sugar, and artificial sweeteners, a jar of non-dairy creamer, and a tattered basket of little packages of Oreos and Lorna Doones. Jim Beckett is slumped in a turquoise pleather chair, staring blankly at the institutional array. "It looks like an AA meeting," he says, before closing his eyes and dropping his head.

This is not the Jim Beckett who raged at him the day his daughter was shot, less than two years ago. This Jim Beckett looks defeated, as if he thinks his daughter has no fight left in her, and there's none in him. He looks 100.

He nods at the others before pulling a chair over next to Jim's. Father-to-father, he rests his hand gently on the older man's arm. "She'll be all right, Jim."

It's some time before the gravelly reply arrives. "You don't know that. Don't you think her luck has run out?"

"No, I don't. I came with her. In the ambulance. She looked ready to–." Ready to what? What lie can he concoct for Jim that can pass as credible? "Her color was good. It was good." No, it was ashen. "Her eyes were closed, but you could tell that the instant she opened them they'd be full of fire." Oh, God why had he said fire? He must smell of fire, too. Of gasoline and smoke and a melange of chemicals.

Jim doesn't answer, and after a while Castle says, "I'm going to talk with the guys."

There's a huddled quartet in the far corner of the room: Espo, Ryan, Lanie, Gates. He hugs each one of them in turn. "You locked up the guy, right?" he asks quietly, to spare Jim. If he's even aware of them. "The driver?"

"Yes," the Captain answers, her voice hushed and professionally calm.

"What about Bracken? I mean, what did he say about him?"

"That he's been his driver for five years. His name is Noah Charles."

"Why did he do it? The driver?"

"We don't know that yet, Mister Castle. He'll be interrogated shortly. We'll be talking to the Senator at length later, too, but he said, 'I assume because someone paid him a great deal of money.' This is not a homicide, but Detectives Esposito and Ryan will be working the case. Understandably they wanted to come here first. Since we have the perpetrator in custody, I thought that was fine. We have others looking into Charles already, and CSU is of course on site."

He knows that he should be channeling his energy into this, into positive thinking about Kate, but now rage takes over, destroying every other emotion. "This could still be a homicide. If Beckett dies." What he doesn't say is that Noah Charles may have detonated the bomb, but that he holds Bracken responsible for it. As soon as he can get the boys alone, he'll say it, and plenty more.

But there's nothing to say now. Nothing to float in this room where everyone wants to expect the best, but doesn't. He doesn't, anyway. He's the one who's seen Kate, the only one. They stand in place, occasionally exchanging glances. At some point Ryan hands him a cup.

"Drink this," he urges.

He takes a sip. Coffee. Beckett's favorite drink, the drink that bonded them before anything else. "Excuse me," he blurts, and goes quickly out into the corridor. He spots a sign for a men's room, runs to it, and makes it into the first stall before he vomits. Afterwards he presses his forehead against the back of the cool metal door, then turns the lock, and goes to the sink. He rinses his mouth out, but doesn't look in the mirror. He knows what he'll see reflected here. Shoving a hand in his pocket, he's relieved to find a stick of gum, unwraps it, and pops it into his mouth. It freshens his breath, but does nothing for the bitterness in his veins.

Everyone but Jim looks his way when he returns, their faces filled with expectation that immediately morphs into disappointment. They'd thought he was the doctor. "Sorry," he mumbles.

At 1:43 a.m. the surgeon finally does arrive. "Mister Beckett?"

Jim raises his head, but doesn't get up. "Yes." That's unlike him, too, the man with perfect manners.

"Your daughter is stable. I won't sugarcoat this: her injuries are varied and severe."

It's the most important message that Castle has ever received, and he can't hear it. Can't concentrate. All he processes are fragments: Punctured lung. Broken ribs. Compound fracture. Burns. Concussion. What had the man said about concussion? He's gone, the doctor. Left the room.

He pivots to Lanie for help, and sees her stricken face.

**A/N** The prompt: Beckett gets hurt when she saves Bracken from the car bomb. Also, I promise you (as always) a happy ending.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** Although I mentioned the prompt for this story at the end of the previous chapter, I inadvertently omitted this note at the top of it: "This story springs from a terrific prompt by Roadrunnerz."

Lanie was the one who had persuaded him to go home. "Kate won't come round for hours and hours," she'd said. "I think we should all try to be at our best when that happens, okay?"

Reluctantly, he'd agreed. He'd invited Jim Beckett to come back with him to the loft, but he'd insisted on staying. Thanks to Lanie's medical credentials, Jim had been allowed to have a cot in the spartan "nap room" for interns and residents. She'd tried to get him to take a sleeping pill, but he'd refused. Maybe as a recovering alcoholic he's still leery of something like that.

He won't take one, either, but only because when he wakes–if he ever manages to sleep–he wants his mind to be as clear as possible. He's lying on his back on Kate's side of the bed, not his, because it smells of her. When will she be back here next to him? Will she ever be back here next to him? What if she loses her leg? The doctor hadn't said anything about that, had he? Surely he'd have picked up on that. Wouldn't he? Or did he hear it and reject it? He'd seen her leg, and he wonders. But far worse, what if the concussion has caused brain damage? What if her beautiful, remarkable mind is so beyond repair that she can no longer speak? What if she's unable to read? What if she no longer understands that she's loved?

The last thought in the eviscerating chain of thoughts makes him roll onto his side and curl up, his hands trapped between his knees. He'd thought he was all cried out, but he's not. His usual optimism has deserted him, and he has to get it back. For Kate. "You know one of the things I love most about you?" she'd told him a few days ago. "You're the sunny side of the street." It had taken him completely and happily by surprise. He squeezes his eyes closed, but the only thing behind his lids is a dark street with a burning car and the love of his life trapped under chunks of it. There is no happiness. There is no sun.

He wakes up to a quiet room and a dry mouth, hauls himself out of bed and looks out the window. It's quiet in here because it's quiet out there: it's snowing, hard. A quick check of his phone reveals nothing except the time, 7:21. There have been no emails, no texts, no voicemails. In the shower, he reaches for his shampoo and pulls his hand back: he'll use hers, instead. He shaves and dresses quickly, and while standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, bleakly considers whom he should call first.

"Lanie," he texts, "please call when you get the chance. Thank you."

He texts again. "Did you sleep at all?"

Are the boys awake? He's closer to Ryan, so he texts and asks him to be in touch, too, but deletes it before hitting send. That can wait.

He should eat something, but it might not stay down. No. N-o. If he's going to rebuild his optimism, his sunny-side-of-the-streetness, he needs fuel. Toast and a poached egg should get him started. Better yet, toast and a sunny-side-up egg. Yes. Y-e-s. Bite four is on his fork when the phone rings.

"Lanie. Hi."

"Hi, Castle."

"How's our girl?"

"There's good news about the pneumothorax. The doctors reinflated her lung and she's breathing better."

"I'm on my way."

"You should wait."

"Why? You said there was good news."

"Because she hasn't been out of surgery for long."

The fork slips from his hand and sends the rest of his sunny-side-up egg upside-down onto the floor. "Surgery? She had surgery? Jesus, Lanie. Why? Brain surgery? What?"

"No, no, no. Shhh. On her leg. With a compound fracture like that the risk of infection is really high. They had to operate as soon as they could. It went well. The orthopedist's very optimistic."

"Optimistic? What does that mean?" It feels as if a steamroller is sitting on his chest.

"That she'll regain full use of her leg. It'll be a long, tough rehab, but she's the toughest person I know."

Grabbing the edge of the counter to keep himself from winding up on the tiles like the fork and the egg, he says, "I'm coming. Now. I'd rather worry there than worry here."

"I guess I'm not going to be able to talk you out of it. Please, don't worry too much. This is the best trauma center in the city, maybe the country. Her doctors are phenomenal."

The terrible weather sends him to the subway, where he makes much better time than he would by any other means. He's empty-handed, and he hates it. But there's nothing he can bring to the ICU, including the dozens of flowers that he wishes he could put on every surface of the room. Could she have ear buds? She could listen to music. Music is a great healer, in so many ways. As he trudges one short block and two long from the subway station to the hospital, he cheers up a bit, thinking about everything that he could download for her. Just before reaching the door he tilts his head back to let the snow fall on his face, and that lifts his mood, too. It always has.

When he gets to the lobby Lanie is waiting for him by the information desk and wraps him in a hug. "Let's get some coffee, Castle. You look like you could use it and I sure as hell could. You won't be able to see Kate for at least an hour, probably two."

After they settle in on a pair of molded plastic chairs in the cafeteria, she explains to him in layperson's terms as much as she can. She'd stayed overnight in the hospital, too, she says, in part because she wanted to help Jim if he needed it. "I was with him when the doctors spoke to him earlier."

"How's he doing?"

"He's holding up pretty well. Better than I would in his position."

There's only so much reassurance Lanie can give him, and on the elevator ride upstairs, he feels apprehension wash over him, and tries to will it away. She leaves him in the waiting room with a promise of letting him know the instant he can see Kate. Beaten-up back issues of an array of magazines have no interest for him, but he has to do something, so he takes out his phone and starts checking the credentials of every one of Kate's doctors. He is momentarily ashamed by how glad he is that Josh is not one of them.

Finally, finally, finally, Lanie comes to fetch him. Jim has already had some time with his daughter, and now it's his turn. As they walk down the hall, Lanie says, "She's on a ventilator, but don't freak out. It's because of the combined concussion and chest injury. She's incredibly strong and they'll be weaning her off it today."

Ventilator? "Right."

"Listen, Castle? Just don't expect too much yet, okay?"

"Okay." Not okay.

It's been more than twelve hours since he last saw her, and he knows that she'll look worse than she did then, impossible as that is to digest. But he also knows that no matter what she'll be able to hear, and he challenges himself to be upbeat when he speaks to her. So what if she can't talk yet? He'll talk for both of them. She can tease him mercilessly about that when she's better. She'll be better. After checking in at the nurses' station, he gingerly enters her room. There are machines everywhere, and tubes everywhere. So many tubes, she has so damn many tubes. He takes some deep breaths and moves his eyes up to her face. One tube is in her mouth, and a vivid bruise stains one side of her forehead. If he weren't positive that she's alive, he'd be frantically getting help. She's unmoving and paler than the hospital sheets. He adds "get good, colorful sheets for KB's hospital bed" to his mental to-do list. Anything to divert himself from the horror in here.

He pulls a chair over next to the bed and lightly puts his right hand over her left. Keep it light. Keep it light. Keep it light. "Hey, Kate. Remember a couple of years ago when you said we had a song? Way before we got together. You said it was 'You Talk Too Much,' by Clarence Carter. I'm going to take advantage of talking too much at the moment, since you can't answer back. It's a golden opportunity. I was thinking of some other songs. How about 'Let Me Talk'? Remember that one? Earth Wind and Fire. You have no choice about letting me talk now, do you? Or, um, 'Talk Is Cheap'? Actually, it's free." He stops, leans down, and kisses her hand. How long can he keep this up? As long as he needs. No, as long as she needs. He clears his throat. "I can read your mind, you know. I can. Right about now you're running through an old Toby Keith song. I know it, I know it." He clears his throat again and starts singing softly. "A little less talk, if you please. A lot more loving is what I need. Let's get on down to the main attraction, with a little less talk and a lot more action." He can't do this, he can't. "I love you, Kate. When you wake up, I'll tell you again. I'll tell you every hour for the rest of our long, long, long, long lives together."

There's someone at the door. "Time's up, Mister Castle," the nurse mouths, tapping the watch on her wrist.

"Geez, they're kicking me out, Kate. But I'll be in the hall." He trails a fingertip across her knuckles. "I'll be right outside your door. Right outside." He has one foot in the corridor when he stops and whips his head around. He heard something. Not a noise from her, she can't make a sound with that tube in her throat, but something. He's sure of it. He stares at the bed until he figures it out. Her hand isn't in exactly the same place it had been. It has moved incrementally. He steps all the way out and looks to his right. Lanie is about 50 feet away, and though he probably shouldn't run in here, he does. "Lanie, Lanie," he grabs her elbow. "I think she might be waking up. Kate. Her hand. I think she moved her hand."

The words have barely left his lips when a cluster of white coats and blue scrubs fills Kate's room. He should tell Jim what happened, but where is he? He's about to text when he realizes what a bad idea that is. Let the professionals fill him in; he could have imagined it. Willed it, even. The last thing he should do is give Kate's father encouraging news if there isn't any.

He tells the nurses that he's going back to the waiting room, which is all he can do. Wait. He's not a naturally patient guy, but this situation calls for patience. Sitting on a slightly rump-sprung sofa, he instructs his mind to wander. It wanders to Senator William H. Bracken. What's the H stand for? He could look it up, but he'd rather invent something. Hellfire, for instance. Is that bastard even going to thank Kate for saving his life? What are some appropriate accidental deaths for him? Nothing too quick. He deserves a drawn-out, excruciating death. Maybe being eaten over time by subway rats. That would be good. Bracken somehow falls off a subway platform and nobody witnesses it. Oh, this could be good. He's in one of those long-abandoned "ghost" subway stations having a secret meeting with one of his abominable associates who leaves ahead of him. In the semi-darkness Bracken slips and falls. That's it. He can't get up off the track. There's no one to hear him shouting for help, no video surveillance of any kind. And the rats eat him, bit by bit.

It may not be his healthiest day dream ever, but it's satisfying.

"Castle?"

He opens his eyes. "Lanie, hey."

"You were right. She can move a little. They'll be taking her off the ventilator slowly. Late this afternoon you can see her again. Want to grab some lunch?"

"Yeah, and let's ask Jim."

They go out to a cafe nearby. None of them has much appetite, but it uses up some time and they're all feeling a little better about Kate. He suddenly realizes that he'd muted his phone and hasn't talked with his daughter or his mother. After saying goodbye to his friends he moves to a little window seat, orders a cappuccino, and calls his mother, who answers immediately and dramatically. He calms her down, says he'll see her this evening, and then phones Alexis. She must be in class, so he leaves her a voicemail and waits for her to call back. Twenty minutes later, as he's sipping his second coffee, she does. He tells her a number of times that he had not been in danger last night, which is actually true.

The snow continues and the temperature has dropped, but he walks around the neighborhood for an hour. He welcomes the cold, feels as if it's sharpening all his senses. What he feels next is the buzz of his phone in his pocket. It's Lanie. He can see Kate. Thank God, thank God.

It's dark out now, and as he approaches her room he sees the low light that makes her look like some sort of angel, a very frail angel. But alive, on Earth.

"Kate. Kate." He kisses her gently on the cheek. "Kate."

"Hi, Castle." Her voice is raspy but she's smiling. Very slightly, but it's a smile. His heart melts.

"How are you?" Really? That's what he asks? He wants to smack himself.

"I blew up."

"What?"

"I think I blew up. Is that why I'm here?"

**A/N** Thank you for all your kind support as I begin a new story, and very special thanks to Madelynn one for her invaluable help with medical questions. Any nuttiness there may be concerning Beckett's treatment is entirely my fault.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** I'm sorry that it took me such a long time to update. Life happens sometimes. You'll recognize a few lines from "Recoil," but almost all are mine.

She'd been confused for a while yesterday. "Temporary," the doctor had said. "The result of coming off the respirator." Shit, she'd been on a respirator? "Won't last long," Castle had said. The confusion, he'd meant. At first she'd thought he meant that she wasn't going to last long. She still feels that way, on and off, like she might not last long, might have used up all her luck.

She'd been confused when she'd come to almost 24 hours after she'd saved William Bracken's life. She'd knocked him to the pavement and thrown herself on top of him when his car blew up right next to them. She remembers doing it, the physical act, the adrenaline; she remembers shouting to Castle to go after the driver, but she doesn't remember the explosion or the aftermath. "Just as well," Castle keeps saying. "I remember, and that's more than enough for both of us."

Her head is clear now, even though it hurts, inside and out. It's not just the concussion, but a burn on her scalp. There's a much worse one on her thigh. She can't look. Not that she's not allowed to look–she would if she could, she could stomach it–but there's nothing to see. Her whole leg is swaddled. But she hurts almost everywhere, especially in her chest. Broken ribs. It's agony. Is it worse than a year and a half ago, when she got shot? Yes, because the pain is everywhere. But also no, it's not worse, because this time she's with Castle. Physical pain, she realizes, is far more endurable than emotional pain.

She may be clear-headed, but she's doped up, and keeps falling asleep. At least she's not having nightmares. "I made them give you the good stuff," Castle told her the second time she woke up. "Only good dreams on this stuff. The doctor promised. You think Espo and Ryan drive a hard bargain? I had to promise the guy tickets to opening day at Yankee Stadium in April. Right behind home plate, none of that nosebleed section. I think I'll get an extra pair for you and me. I'll paint pinstripes on your cast."

She's in here by herself a lot. Visitors can't be in the ICU all the time–even Castle, no matter what kind of bribery he tries. It's good that she's alone. She needs to figure out how to work through this pain, mask it, make herself seem okay when her dad visits. Or Castle. Even Lanie, but that's a lot harder.

"I'm a professional, Kate," she had said when she stopped by an hour or so ago. "Don't give me this 'Oh, my pain is only a two' crap. No one thinks you're weak if you ask for meds, and you're not going to turn into a junkie. Got it?"

"Yeah." Yeah, but no. Well, maybe yeah for a while. Just until she gets back on her feet. Ha. That's a good one. She won't be back on her left foot for a long time. She dozes off again. Here's the nurse. She asks him if Dr. Parish is around and he says he'll try to find her. A few minutes later her friend walks in.

"I need a haircut, Lanie."

"Say what?"

"A haircut. Part of my hair is burned. Could you cut those ends off? Please? The smell is horrible."

"Can't believe you're worrying about your hair, Kate."

"Not worrying, I just hate it. If the burnt part is gone I won't keep thinking about it, okay?"

"Okay."

"Sorry, I shouldn't be asking you. Aren't you supposed to be at work? With dead people?"

"Nope. Took a few days off. So I can be here to take care of your hair, you know? Give you a mani-pedi, too. And I'll charge less since I can do only your right foot."

"Oh, very nice. Doctor humor."

"Which is almost exactly like cop humor."

"True."

It takes a little doing, but Lanie manages to get a towel around her, cut off the burnt hair, and trim a lot of the undamaged part so that the newly short ends are less noticeable. Sitting up and pitching forward while Lanie wields her scissors, and staying still throughout, though, exhausts her.

"Your eyelids are drooping already, honey. I'm gonna scram before the nurse throws me out or you conk out, whichever comes first. See you later."

When she wakes again with a start, she has no idea how long she's been asleep. It's almost dark, and since it's early February the sun sets not long after five. It must be late afternoon. She turns her head away from the window and finds Castle perched on the chair on the other side of her bed. "Hey."

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Okay."

"I doubt it, but at least I have a surprise for you. Cleared it with the doctor."

"You talked them into springing me?"

"Sorry, not that good. Even I couldn't swing that. Still." He leans over, fetches something that must be in a bag at his feet, and beams as he holds up a small thermos. "Your favorite coffee. Decaf version, I grant you, but it's the best I could do. I made it myself, and in your honor I'm foregoing the caffeine, too."

What she wants to say is, "That's true love," but she can't. She will, later. Some day. Soon, some day. Instead she says, "Thank you. You're a prince."

"What? Not king?"

"You'll be king when you bring me the high-octane." She takes a sip from the cup that he has put gently in her hand. "Oh, that's good," she murmurs, and licks her dry lips. "Maybe you're a king after all." She closes her eyes, in part because she's reveling in the coffee, but largely she's thinking about Castle's expression, the one he has put on over the one he doesn't want her to see. The only one she's supposed to see is of good cheer and encouragement, but she also recognizes immediately what he thinks he has hidden. He's scared–not about her injuries, because he knows that she'll recover. What he's scared about is Bracken, a hell of a lot more scared than she is. If she were in his shoes, she might be, too, except that she no longer scares easily, if she ever did. She's going to have to talk to him about it, but not yet. When she's less dozy. He's trying to keep it light. Okay, she can do that. If it eases his fear even a little, holds it at bay, she'll do it. She slides her right hand across the sheet to him. "So, gonna paint pinstripes on my cast?"

"Damn right I am. Maybe I could get a little Yankee stocking cap to put over your toes. What do you think? With a pompom on top? It'll still be cold at the beginning of April."

"Hell of a fashion statement. I'm not sure that even the Yankees make something like that."

He shrugs his shoulders dismissively. "No matter. I know a knitter. Equal to any task."

"Of course you do." She grins at him and squeezes his hand. "What did you put in this coffee, Castle?"

"Me? Nothing. Everything as usual except the caffeine."

"No aphrodisiac, then?"

His eyes widen. "Noooo."

"Are you sure? Because if this weren't the ICU with glass everywhere and doctors and nurses a few feet away, I'd haul your ass into this bed with me."

"My ass, huh?"

"And your other parts."

She's rewarded with a chuckle. "All my parts would love to be in bed with you, but I've told them they have to wait."

She raises her eyebrows. "Does that include your mouth?"

"Beckett!" he gasps. "I'm shocked."

"Mind out of the gutter, Castle," she says, tickling the inside of his wrist with her fingernail. "What I meant was that I'd like you to kiss me."

"Are you sure?" he asks, looking and sounding terrified.

"Yes, I'm sure. My mouth is about the only thing that doesn't hurt."

He leans over and kisses her lightly and gingerly.

"A little more oomph, Castle. I'm not going to break." She sees hurt cross his eyes. "I know, I know. I'm already broken in a lot of places, but you of all people must believe in the power of kissing things to make them better. You can kiss those places later, but for now, come back here and kiss my lips."

When he leans over again she grabs the back of his head, pulls him towards her, kisses him a great deal less gently than he's kissing her, and slips him some tongue. She can feel his surprise, but she's just insistent enough to get him to respond.

"That's more like it," she says afterwards, when their foreheads are pressed together and they're both a little short of breath. "And by the way, better than the painkillers they're giving me. No horrible side effects either."

"No side effects?"

"I didn't say there were none, just no horrible ones. There was an extremely pleasant side effect and one irritating one."

It's his turn to raise his eyebrows, "The irritating one being?"

"Making me want you so badly and not being able to do anything about it."

"Now you know how I felt for four years, Beckett. There were long stretches when I took more cold showers than hot ones."

Seconds after he makes this confession, an orderly arrives with what constitutes dinner. "I'm sneaking food in here for you tomorrow," Castle says, looking disapprovingly at her plate. At which point a nurse arrives and tells him that visiting hours are over.

Except, as it turns out, they aren't. Much later, probably around eleven–she's only guessing because her father's watch, which was miraculously unscathed in the bombing, is with Castle for safekeeping–she sees someone in the doorway. Because he's backlit, his face is essentially invisible, but she'd know that body anywhere, under any circumstances.

"Detective," he says quietly, as he steps into her room.

"Senator," she replies, the ice in her voice matching that on the outside edge of her window.

"You saved my life."

She ignores the observation. "How did you get in here? Visiting hours ended ages ago. And you're not on my visitors' list."

"Oh, you'd be amazed at some of the perks available to someone in my position."

"Disgusted is more like it."

He sits in the chair that Castle had occupied earlier. "Sorry to hear one of my valued constituents speak that way."

"I may be one of your constituents, but I sure as hell didn't vote for you."

"A valued constituent, nonetheless. I'd have brought you flowers, but they're not allowed in the ICU."

Though she's tempted to say, "Put them on Melanie Rogers's grave," she lets his comment pass. "Why are you here?"

"You saved my life."

"Regrettably, it was my job to protect you. I still don't know why you're in my hospital room."

"Well, I suppose I'm in your debt, Detective."

She moves, as much as she can. "Nothing's changed between us."

"That may be, but it's a dangerous world out there. You never know when you might need a friend."

"I could say the same to you, Senator. But you're not my friend and never will be. My captain and my partners from the Twelfth brought me up to date on the case. They even played the video of your little generic tribute to the NYPD. I emphasize little. And I know as well as you exactly who was behind the bombing. I don't refer to your driver. He was just the trigger man."

Bracken stands and pitches his voice so low that she has to strain to hear it. "If you're so sure who was behind the bombing, who put you in that bed, I trust you'll be pursuing him, and not me."

She reaches for the call toggle, and presses the button for help. "Oh, I'll be pursuing him, all right. But I'll also be pursuing you."

"Is everything all right, Ms. Beckett?"

Bracken spins around at the sound of the nurse's voice.

"Yes, thanks. If you would just show the Senator out."

"Of course."

"Bracken," she whispers, loud enough to get his attention. "Calling for help is one of the perks of being an ICU patient. Immediate trash removal."

**A/N** Thank you for sticking with me. The next chapter will arrive far more quickly than this one did. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and many other holidays that occur at this time of year. May we all find peace.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

She moved out of ICU to a regular, if private, room this morning. Soon after she was wheeled out for some tests, and now she's being wheeled back. She knows that she should be grateful for being alive, but her mood is bleak.

Until she's pushed through the door into a transformed space, and her spirits rise. Vases of flowers cover almost every surface; a poster-size photo of the bullpen at the Twelfth is taped to the wall; a sky blue cashmere throw is on the back of the chair, and a mug labeled PATIENCE, PATIENT is on the stand next to her bed.

"Castle?" she asks of the empty–empty of humans, anyway–room as soon as the orderly has settled her in.

"I'm in your bathroom," he says, poking his head out the door. "I brought you towels from home. Just hanging them up." When he emerges he adds, "Don't know how anyone is expected to get well if she has to dry off with those scratchy, paper-thin, stingy bits of terrycloth. Maybe whoever chose them thought that would a good incentive for the patient to get home more quickly. Oh, and the appalling soap is gone. I replaced it with yours." He plops down next to her and kisses her on the cheek.

"Wow, I've been gone less than an hour and you did all this? Thank you." She reaches up and kisses him back. "But, uh, don't you think you went a little overboard on the flowers?"

"You must be kidding."

"Sorry, my mistake. I can't help noticing that they're all some shade of red or pink, though."

"Duh."

"Duh?"

"Don't you remember what day tomorrow is?"

"Of course I do. It's Thursday. Right between Wednesday and Friday."

"Not what I meant."

"Put me out of my dateless misery, then."

"You're not dateless. You have me."

"That's sweet, but it's not what I meant, either."

"Okay. You're excused this time, but only because of the circumstances. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day."

Her hands fly up by their own volition and settle on her cheeks. "Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. You may not believe me, but I have a Valentine's present for you. Really. You'll have to wait for it, though."

"I can wait." He drills his very, very blue eyes into hers, the look that always brings her to her knees. Figuratively, in this case, since it will be some time before she can be on her knees again. "I waited four years to get you into my bed, didn't I?"

"Well, as I recall, I was the one that got you into your bed. You wanted to kick me out."

"Well, yeah, sort of. But once you ran your fingers across my lips like that, right at the edge of my mouth, I was a goner. I can still feel them there when I think about it."

"You can?" Her heart is melting. She feels like a 14-year-old.

"I can. Want to try it again?"

She does, with the same result, except that she's already in bed and, regrettably, this time he can't climb in there with her. "Good thing the door's closed," she murmurs into his mouth.

"You're right," he assents, before straightening up. "Hey, why did they take you out this morning? You have an X ray or something?"

"No." The dark cloud has come back through the closed window and is hanging just above her. Her chin dips until it's almost on her chest.

"That's it, 'No'?"

"Mmmhmm."

He doesn't say a word for some time, which she knows is difficult for him. And then he very gently cradles her jaw and tilts her head up. "You know that part of my job is emotional support, right? I'm your number one cheerleader."

Her throat is clogged; she can only nod.

"And I can't be as good at is as I want to be, need to be, if I can't tell what's wrong. Specifically, I mean, not generally. I didn't lose any brain cells figuring out that you must have gotten some bad news this morning, but I don't know what the news was. Is."

The tears that she'd been trying to hold off spill out, and she presses the heels of her hands hard below her eyes. "I'm so embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?" He sounds as surprised as she's ever heard. She nods again.

"You're almost never embarrassed, except when I tell you how gorgeous you are."

Which elicits more tears, and he moves to the edge of the bed and hugs her as much as her broken ribs will allow. "What? What is it? Please. Please tell me, Kate."

She whispers into his shoulder, obviously not loudly or clearly enough for him.

"Sorry, I don't understand what you said."

She pushes herself away, takes a shallow breath–broken ribs also prevent a deep breath–and says, looking over his shoulder to the wall, "I'm embarrassed because I'm vain. I don't like to think of myself as vain. You say I'm gorgeous? Wait til you see the skin graft on my thigh, Castle, and you won't say it again. That's where I was, having the skin graft examined. I hadn't seen it before, and I won't ever be able to unsee it. Neither will you. It's huge. It's hideous. It's fifty times worse than my scars from the shooting. I thought I was tough enough, but I wasn't. I'm not."

He shifts both of them so they're facing each other. "Ah, so you're beating yourself up for being vain–your word, definitely not mine–and also for not being as tough as you thought you were, or should be?"

"Yes."

"You know." He stops. It seems as if it's a long time before he starts again, though maybe it isn't. She's too screwed up to tell. "You know," he starts again, and stops. "You know, one of the many things I've looked up since the explosion was skin grafts. They're very hard psychologically, often worse than they are physically. It has to do with body image. Do you remember that first morning we were together?"

"When you hid me in the closet?"

He flinches a little.

"I'm sorry, Castle. I'm sorry. That was unfair."

"Don't apologize." He shakes his head. "I did hide you in the closet. What's unfair is what's happened to you, and what I'm remembering is that first morning, long before my mother turned up. Probably three or four o'clock, pitch dark, and we were talking in bed. I kept kissing the scar from the bullet and the one down your side. You said kissing them wouldn't make them go away or be any less ugly."

"It's true."

"And then I said they were beautiful to me, would always be beautiful, because they were–are–the evidence of what a fighter you are. The same is true to me of your skin graft, no matter what you may think. Your reaction to it is normal. If you don't believe me, I hope that you'll believe Doctor Burke."

"Burke."

"You told me a while ago that one of the best things about seeing him is that it made you understand that there's no shame in being in therapy. And I'm saying that there's no shame in what you're feeling now." He laces his fingers through hers. "May I see it? The graft?"

Slowly she lifts her hospital gown. "Here." She keeps her eyes off her leg and on him; his expression hasn't changed, but his eyes have. They're full. He swallows and then looks up at her.

"Must hurt like hell," he says, his voice thick.

"Not as much as it did. Itches. The ribs are a lot worse." She lets the robe fall back.

"Don't. Please. I want to take a picture of it."

"You must be kidding? Why?"

"Because later on, I don't know how much later, it will look less raw. If I have a photo, you'll believe me. And later on, whenever you let me, I'll kiss your thigh, too. Not like I've kissed it a hundred times since last May, but more. Differently. Because it means more now."

"Maybe I won't have any feeling there any more. Where the burn was, where the graft is."

"Won't matter. You'll have it everywhere else. Like here." He kisses her warmly on the lips. "See?"

"Take the damn photo, then. But only one."

"Only one." He takes out his phone, snaps exactly one picture, and slips the phone back into the pocket of his jeans. "There. Done." He smiles. "Did you eat what the hospital calls breakfast?"

"Not exactly."

"Uh, huh. Well, luckily for you breakfast is now being served, right here. Hang on."

He takes a few steps, retrieves a thermal tote bag, carries it to her bed, and unzips it.

"Oh, my God. Bacon. You have bacon in there?"

"I do, and this bag is worth its outrageous price because it has kept said bacon both hot and crispy."

With a flourish, several flourishes, he produces a thermos of orange juice, the bacon, two plates and two napkins, followed by a wax paper bag that holds two warm croissants.

"Thank you," she says after eating a slice of bacon. "This was a horrible morning and you've made it much less horrible."

"I hope you'll think about what I said."

"I will. Not so easy, but I will."

At that moment, a nurse comes in with a flowering plant. "This just arrived, Detective Beckett. Not sure where you'll put it, but maybe we can do a little rearranging."

"Thank you. Could you just leave it here on the bed tray, please?"

"Of course. Looks like Mister Castle is not your only admirer."

"Probably my dad. Thanks again."

She reads the card when the nurse steps back into the hall, then shoves the plant towards Castle. "Throw it out. Get it out of here, please."

"What?"

"It's from Bracken." She holds the card by one corner, almost unable to bear touching it. "Here's what he said. 'I know you'll be back on your feet soon, chasing real criminals.' The implication, of course, being that he isn't a real criminal."

Castle is breathing hard, and his fury is obvious, even if he's not shouting. "I think." He grabs his hear and tugs on it. "I think you have two choices. Give it to someone in the hospital who doesn't have any flowers. Or—"

"Or send it back to the florist. Say delivery refused."

"Exactly. Up to you."

"Much as I want to tell him to take the plant and shove it, I hate knowing that there are people here with nothing to cheer them up. Could you ask the nurse to choose someone? She's bound to know."

"I will." He checks his watch. "It's after eleven. You should probably have a nap before your father gets here to have lunch with you. I'm going to do a few errands and come back in the afternoon, around four. Okay?"

"Definitely okay. And Castle? Thank you. For everything. Everything."

"You're welcome," he says, tucking the plant under his arm.

When he's at the door, she calls out. "Castle? I love you."

"And I love you."

She closes her eyes and wills sleep.

Twenty minutes later he lets himself into the empty loft and heads for his office. He had no errands to run; even if he had, he'd have let them slide. He has about four and a half hours until he returns to the hospital. That's enough time to toss back two very strong drinks, think horrible thoughts about Bracken, drink a great deal of very strong coffee to counteract the effects of the alcohol, and take a long shower. Wash the stench of Bracken off his skin.

Midway through his second Scotch he opens the most recent photo on his phone and stares at it. Kate was right, the graft looks terrible. But she's alive and she'll be fine and that's all the matters. Or should be. It is, but–and there's a big but. He wants to send the photo to Bracken, tell him that this angry looking patch of skin shouldn't be on her thigh, it should be on his face. His whole fucking face, so that every morning when he looked in the mirror that's what he'd see.

But Kate Beckett saved the Senator, and he had no business being saved.

TBC

**A/N** Thanks again to Madelynn one for help with medical questions. It's afternoon on New Year's Eve here on the east coast of the US. I wish you all a happy 2020, wherever you are, and peace for our troubled world.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

It had taken a great deal of negotiation with a vast array of people and personalities, but he had finally persuaded all of Beckett's doctors, as well as the patient herself, that she could and should live in the loft for a while rather than in a rehab center. He'd rented all the equipment she needed and had it set up in his office.

"All your things are in there," she'd protested, though not fervently, when he'd proposed the idea. "There's no room."

"I can move everything except my desk and chair to storage. I have a huge space in the basement."

She'd twisted her mouth a few times, apparently in an effort to find a reasonable objection, and finally blurted, "You might miss some of your things. You know. Not having them there."

"I might miss some of my things? Well, okay, if I do, I'll take the elevator down and visit it. Fortunately I can do that at any hour. Chat with my love seat. Commune with the globe, give it a few spins. That what you mean?"

She'd given him a look, picked up the little flip-top thermos he'd given her, and drunk some water. But she'd had no comeback.

What had really won her over was his description–which he concedes, but only to himself, is not entirely accurate–of certain aspects of rehabilitation facilities. "They're five flights down from Hell," he'd said. "Have you ever been to one? They play elevator music, and not just in the elevator. And really, really bad disco in the PT rooms. And the food. My God, we're trying to put a little meat on your bones, not have what little is there melt away like an imperiled glacier. The food is almost inedible, and served at ludicrous times. Totally inflexible. Whereas at my house you would have not only the benefit of my cooking, if you'll forgive my boasting, but any cuisine you want, anytime. The glories of takeout and home delivery. And don't forget that midnight snack is my middle name. Middle names."

He'd known that she was weakening, and he'd pressed on.

"I've saved the worst for last. The unholy trinity. One," he'd held up a finger. "Tiny showers in which you can't even turn around. If you drop the soap your life is over. Two," he'd added a second finger. "The bed. A twin size, barely three feet wide, very lumpy. Scratchy sheets. Worse than a college dorm bed, and I know what I'm talking about. I've sat on Alexis's in her room at Columbia. That rump-sprung seat I have in your squad car is comfier. And three," a third finger joins the first two. "The coffee is made once a day and it's scorched, yet so weak it wouldn't wake a moth." He waits a few seconds before delivering what he thinks of as the coup de caffeine: "And it's decaf."

"Fine," she'd said. He'd waited until she'd closed her eyes before giving himself a fist pump.

That was a week and a half ago. She's been here eight days and it's going better than he'd allowed himself to hope. She's coping with her pain immeasurably better than he could, and she's almost scarily dedicated to physical therapy. "I've been through this before, remember?" she'd said when he'd praised her work ethic. "I know what I have to do to get back. To get everything back."

Despite the circumstances, despite everything, he loves having her here under his roof, all day and all night. He learned on day one to give her physical space and even more emotional space. It's not just that she's a less social animal than he, it's what she's recovering from in unimaginable and uncountable ways.

There is a downside, though, and one he hopes that she's not aware of, ever. By almost unspoken agreement–they spoke of it once, very briefly–they do not discuss Bracken. At least not for now. That doesn't prevent him from thinking of the son of a bitch. Obsessing, even, usually late at night when he sees that she's not completely at rest even in her sleep. Or when he sees the mental and physical pain that she endures in physical therapy. Yesterday he'd driven her to an appointment with Dr. Burke, and waited for her around the corner. Her eyes were red when he'd picked her afterwards.

"I won't ask," he'd whispered as he rolled her wheelchair to the car.

"Thank you," she'd whispered back.

But he's found a way to deal with his feelings about Bracken, and wonders why he hadn't thought of it sooner. It's a simple and, for him obvious solution: he writes. He writes about the glib monster on the back of envelopes, on his phone, in the notebook that he keeps in his jacket pocket, on his laptop–even, once, on the palm of his hand, as if he were an eighth-grader cheating on a science test.

As often as he tells or reminds himself that he doesn't wish death on anyone, he makes an exception, repeatedly, for William Bracken. True, he writes murder mysteries for a living, but those killings are of fictional characters, even if the people solving them bear a considerable likeness to Beckett and him. Unhealthy as it may be, he devises many different end-of-life moments for the Senator. "Maybe this is actually healthy," he'd said a few days ago, when he was alone in his office. "Gets it out of my system." Except that his system is very, very large. One of his favorite dispatches–he congratulates himself for that one, a dispatch about a dispatch–is the one he's working on now. It's the only dreamscape in which Bracken dispatches himself, not because he's contrite, but because he's a coward and a cornered rat. He leaves no suicide note, but takes a large quantity of sleeping pills that he washes down with Hendrick's gin. Originally Castle was going to have him drinking 15-year-old Macallan, until he realized that he didn't want his own favorite single malt to be Bracken's, too. He switched to gin because it's something that he never drinks. "Choke to death on that, Billy boy," he says.

Castle does not allow the Senator an easy demise: he doesn't doze off to eternal damnation, although eternal damnation is what he deserves and what he gets. Instead, he starts choking, just as Castle had instructed him to do, on the pills. He takes too many at once, and they lodge excruciatingly in his esophagus. He has locked himself into a room, and hasn't the strength or the oxygen to get himself out. "You're changing your mind, aren't you, Bracken?" Castle asks the character on his computer screen. "Suddenly want to live, huh? Too late. No one's there to give you the Heimlich." In this story, when four of them from the Twelfth–Beckett, Espo, Ryan, and he–break down the door and find the body, the Mozart Requiem is playing on repeat on his phone. The section that's filling the air is the _Dies Irae_. "Nice," Ryan the former altar boy says approvingly. "Day of wrath is right."

He's working at the dining room table and noise from his office, currently the PT space, startles him. He checks his watch: he's lost track of the time and Beckett's session is over. He immediately shuts down his laptop and has just gotten to his feet when she emerges in her wheelchair.

"I have to take a shower right now," she says crankily. "I've never worked this hard in my life."

"You look gorgeous," he says, and he means it. A sweaty Beckett is a sexy Beckett.

"And I'm hot."

"Just what I said."

"Castle." If he didn't know that she loves him, the way she said his name would have scared the pants off him.

"Right."

"God, if I could I'd have a G and T right now."

He chokes. Not as badly as Bracken had in his mind a moment ago, and certainly not fatally, but he has a coughing spasm.

"You all right Castle?"

"Yes, yes. Fine. But gin? You drink _gin_?"

"Not usually, but once in a while I crave a gin and tonic."

"Good to know," he says, making a mental note to have Bracken choke on rum instead. He hates rum. He used to drink rum and Coke when he was young because it was cheap. "How about some lunch?"

"After I clean up."

"Want help?"

"No. No, thank you. I need to do this myself."

Much as he wants to insist that he get in the shower with her, he understands her yearning for independence. She has very little at the moment, but she can get the waterproof gizmo around her leg, maneuver herself into the walk-in space, and use the hand-held shower to bathe herself. She'd done it for the first time completely on her own yesterday, and the triumph and relief in her eyes had brought him to the edge of tears.

A large, late meal combined with her physical exhaustion and his sleep deprivation makes them both sleepy, and they get on the bed and pull up the duvet for a nap. He's almost out when she takes his hand.

"Castle?"

"Mmhmm."

"I have to tell you something."

The six words and the tone of her voice–tenuous, frightened–make his heart feels as though it's being crushed between two NFL offensive linemen. "That's what I'm here for," he says, aiming for casual. "That and cooking. And cuddling."

"I talked to Burke yesterday."

"Uh-huh." He's bruised by the memory of how she looked after the appointment.

"About Bracken."

"Oh."

She squeezes his hand. "I'm scared of him, but I'm not, you know? I have all this rage in me, and I hate it. I really hate it. I want him out of my head, but I don't know how to do it."

"Is that what you told Burke?" He turns his head to look at her, but the curtained room is dim and she's on her back, so he can see her only in profile. "He can help you with that. He helped you before when Bracken was an abstraction. When you had no idea who was behind your mother's death."

"I know. I know. It's just such a battle and I'm not equipped for it yet. I just don't have the armor. I mean, I want to get that son of a bitch, you know that. But I feel like the hate gets in the way. I can't think straight with that eating away at me. And I need to be able to."

He wants to soothe her, tell her she'll get through this, they'll get through this, except his rage and his hate feel much bigger and darker than hers. He can't tell her that. He needs to be the rational, reasoned, cautious one, and he also needs to bear some of her burden. The pounding in his chest is so strong that he wonders if it's his imagination or the bed really is shaking. He rolls over and kisses her shoulder. "You will. You will. I promise. Go to sleep."

She brushes her knuckles gently across his cheek. "You, too. You need to sleep."

"I know."

"Don't get up to write, okay? Stay here with me."

"I will."

They met 1,815 days ago; he began to fall in love with her eight weeks later, during a case of a kidnapped little girl. And in all that time, he has never once thought that she might ask him to stay in bed with her and that he'd consider getting out. Why would he? He's waiting for her breathing to even out so that he's sure that she's in a deep sleep. The urge to write is enormous, and his brain is racing even faster than his heart, but he's staying put. He's trying to calm himself. How weird is that he keeps track of exactly how long he has known her? What day he started to fall in love with her, what day he stopped denying that he was a goner? What night they had first had sex? What morning he'd told her he loved her, and what afternoon she'd told him? Not just the dates on the calendar but how long ago each was. He'd even made an (unnamed) file in his phone, on the off chance that he got hit on the head and couldn't remember. She'd found it recently, the night before Christmas Eve, when she was looking for a photo on his phone.

"What's this, Castle?" she'd asked, squinting slightly in the way that does things to his most intimate body parts.

"That? Just a list."

"I see that. Hmm." She'd run her eyes down the list–by now it is very, very long–and said, "I recognize a couple of these. March ninth, two thousand nine. Day we met. January twenty-third, the next year." She'd winced then, but said nothing. It was the day she'd saved his life by shooting Dick Coonan.

She'd stopped at a few more, always reciting the date but not what was memorable about it, except for two. "Oh, God. May twenty-first. The night Montgomery died." She'd covered her eyes. It says a lot that she hadn't read aloud the date of her own shooting, so soon after. She'd moved on, then touched her fingertip to a line on the screen, traced it over and over, and smiled. He couldn't see the date. "Won't ever forget this one," she'd said quietly, looking up. "May twelfth, last year. That was a hell of a night."

"That was a heaven of a night."

And then she'd tossed the phone on to the floor and thrown herself on top of him and that had been that. And what a that. If he were a blushing man, he'd blush at the memory. At one sweaty post-coital moment she'd rolled onto his chest and asked, "You gonna put December twenty-third, two thousand eleven on your list?"

"Oh, yes. Yesyesyesyes. Most definitely yes."

That was two months ago, and in many ways it feels like years. So much has happened. God damn you Bracken, he thinks, his open palm on his chest, feeling his heart rate accelerate again. God damn you.

He rolls on his side, inches opens the drawer of his nightstand, and extracts a notebook and pen. Lying on his back, with his knees drawn up so he can prop the notebook against his thighs, he begins to write. And write and write and write. He writes in anger and with venom and doesn't know that he'd fallen asleep until he hears Kate's voice.

"Castle?" She has the notebook in her hands, and even in the dim light he can see the horror in her eyes. "What is this? What is this? You're strangling Bracken? Crushing his trachea with your thumbs? Murdering him? You're actually doing this?"

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

Her reaction to the Bracken death scene that he'd been writing upsets him more than he could have imagined. He feels as if he's betrayed her, somehow. Certainly shocked her. Appalled her.

He tries to take the notebook from her but she's holding it so tightly that he'd have had to pull it away hard, which he won't do, especially in these circumstances. "It's not real, Kate. I'm not going to do it. It's my imagination. I'm killing him in my imagination. It's the only way I can find to exorcise–."

"It's so brutal, Castle. It's so–." She closes her eyes and turns her face away.

"Kate, please." He touches her arm and feels a tiny flinch.

"I didn't know you could think that way," she says. "It's so personal and–. And so violent."

He pushes himself up to a sitting position and reaches over to turn on the light on his night table. She's ashen, and it's all his doing. He rubs his hands hard down his face, as if that would somehow miraculously bring color to her cheeks. "I didn't know I could, either." Air escapes from his lungs, and he feels deflated, but on a long intake of breath he suddenly understands what he has to do. Come clean, come clean in every way. Tell her why his mind has been taking such horrible turns. "This is going to take a while. I want to explain. Need to explain. Everything. Do you want to stay here, or get up?"

"Get up."

Before she can maneuver herself into the wheelchair that's next to her side of the bed, he scoops her up in his arms, carries her to the living room, and puts her on the sofa. Once both her legs are stretched out, he drapes them in the blanket that had been neatly folded at one end. "Coffee?"

"Please."

"Don't move."

"Not a chance."

Just as he's about to put the beans in the grinder, he stops, turns, and goes to the fridge. In a few minutes, he's on his way back to her, a mug in each hand. "Changed my mind," he says. "Hot chocolate. I hope that's okay. I wanted something comforting and thought you could use it, too."

" 's fine. Thank you."

He knows what to say, if not exactly how, but can't decide where he should be physically. Next to her is the obvious choice, but it's awkward. She's looking at him, her eyes enormous and full of some kind of struggle that he can't bear to contemplate. And then he knows. He gets behind her, his chest against her back, his legs carefully bracketing hers, as if they were–oh, if only they were–floating in the tub together. She can't see his face, but she'll feel him. He presses the side of his face against her cheek, and when he starts speaking he can feel his breath against her skin.

"I have to go back a little. Maybe a lot, really. The first was the Nikki Heat case where your apartment was bombed and I was sure that you were dead. That was really the beginning, when I thought this was it. The end. And I'd caused it. Not by doing something rash, but writing a book that put you in danger."

"Castle, we discussed that. The guy was a lunatic, he–"

"I know, I know, but it's part of a pattern for me, I have to show you. The year after that, when you got shot at Montgomery's funeral, that was a thousand times worse. Ten thousand. I know now, more than I did then, what hell the aftermath was for you. I have to imagine a lot of it, but I've made most of my career with my imagination. What I don't know–and this is not an excuse, okay?–is whether you know what a horrific toll your shooting took on me. When you came back that fall, I said that I was angry because you promised to call but didn't. And I was. Angry, and hurt. But much more than that, I was crushed by guilt. I was responsible. I am responsible. I knew it then. I put all this hell in motion by opening up your mother's case."

"We've talked–"

"Shh, shh." He kisses her on the velvety spot behind her ear. "No. I have to make you understand why I wrote what you read. I guess in some ways I'm like the spouse of a cop who worries every day if she'll come home that night, except my anxiety is way higher. More than once you almost haven't come home, and because I work with you I see exactly, know exactly, the kind of danger you're in."

He pauses, and leans forward to take a few sips of hot chocolate, hoping that it will calm him down but also keep him going. "When Dick Coonan was holding a gun to my head, how did you feel? When my mother and I were held hostage in the bank and you thought that we'd been killed in the explosion, how did you feel? I don't want you to answer, I just want you to think about it for a second. That's how I feel about you almost all the time now. I've never told you and I should have. I have this low-level anxiety that's become part of me, and a lot of the time it's full-blown terror. Like when the sniper was taking people out fifteen months ago. I didn't worry so much that he was going to kill you; I worried about your emotional state and my total inability to help you. I was beside myself about that cut on your wrist, what it really was, but you wouldn't tell me."

He stops again, and wraps one arm around her chest, though not as tightly as he'd like because her ribs are far from healed. "It's worse now because we're together. The stakes are so much higher. You're in my blood and under my skin. You're with me, in me, all the time. But there's something else that escalates this, and it's the specificity of it. The dread has a face now. The dread has a name. It's William Bracken. William Bracken is the root of all this. He wants you dead and yet you saved him. He's power-mad and completely without a conscience. You saved him and he's still here. You'd probably save him again if you thought you had to. That's almost impossible for me to live with, and so I killed him in my head, over and over again. I hate it, it makes me sick, but I love you so much that it's all I can do to keep myself from going out and paying a hit man every cent I have to take him out."

Her hand is on the back of his neck, and she's pulling his head as far forward as she can. "Stop. Stop." Her voice is half urgency, half gentleness. "Castle, stop. I never thought about this burden you're carrying. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't, you shouldn't. Listen. Listen. I want you to listen. You need to talk to someone who can help you with this. I want to, but I can't. I don't know how. But someone will."

"Someone."

"A therapist. You need to talk to a therapist. Please. Promise me."

"A therapist."

She has tilted her head back, her anguish visible but the horror gone. "You must have thought of that. You say how much Burke has helped me, will help me. I'm not saying you should see him, it's not good for us both to go to him, but someone. You need your own Burke."

He feels like an idiot. Why hadn't he come to this conclusion on his own? Did his subconscious tell him that getting professional help is a sign of weakness? Well, yes. It had been telling him that for years. "You're right," he says. "When Alexis was little and I was struggling with being a single Dad and trying to deal with real money, I should have found a shrink. The idea did occur to me, but I rejected it for what I told myself was right. First, I thought that I should be strong enough to do everything on my own, macho man. And second, Meredith was constantly going on about her therapy–and sending me the bills–and that made me run the other direction."

"You're not the only one," she says, dropping her hand to his knee and squeezing it. "I went only because I was forced to. Department regs. Fortunately, somehow I had the wits to go back after that mandatory first session."

They talk quietly for a few more minutes, still nestled on the sofa. "I'm going to take you back to bed. Your nap was cut short, and you still need it."

"So do you." she insists. "A least I was out for a while."

"Okay." Since the wheelchair is still in the bedroom, he carries her back and climbs into bed after her. Confession really is good for the soul, he thinks, as his eyes close.

She doesn't go back to sleep. Instead, she watches him, for an hour. She tracks the shadows that move across his face as the afternoon yields to night. She charts the occasional movement of his eyes behind the lids, and the softening of his jaw. Lately it has been clamped shut almost every night, and while she's noticed it, she hasn't asked him about it. She should have; it's one of a long lists of shoulds. She's ashamed that she has never weighed the impact of her injuries, the threats against her, on Castle. What they cost him. Is it because no man she has been with in the past would have felt even half of what Castle does? The fault is hers: she never let anyone get close enough to her to make such an emotional investment. But Castle is also very different than any man she knows. He has cared for a very long time, long before they were a couple, long before so many things. She hadn't been aware of it, not the depth or wideness of it. "It doesn't get me off the hook," she whispers. "It doesn't. Nothing does. I should have known."

Next to her, he stirs but doesn't wake. She slips her hand under his shirt and rests it on his chest. Even after nine months of incredible sex, of lying in bed next to him, soaping his back in the shower, swimming with him, she is astonished by how soft his skin is, especially because the musculature beneath it is so hard. Either on its own arouses her, but the combination is wildly erotic. She presses her open palm over his heart, his generous heart, and feels it beating. She wishes that she could roll over and kiss the spot, run her tongue over it, give his nipple a love bite, but she can't. Her leg, the leg she has so often wrapped around him or used to flip him on his back, is a clumsy, useless, heavy weight. "It won't be forever," she says.

Her voice must have been louder than she'd realized, because his eyes pop open. "What?" he asks, the word laced with panic. "What? What won't be forever?"

"My damn leg," she responds, putting a finger over his lips. "My leg won't be like this forever."

"Damn right it won't. It's gonna be good as new."

"Not quite. Not the big patch of horrible–"

"I don't care about that. All I want is for you to have full use of your gorgeous–"

"Formerly gorgeous."

"Shhh. Your gorgeous leg. And you will."

There's such love and faith and certainty in his face. She hopes that he sees that in hers, too. She looks at him for so long, and so intently, that he finally asks, "Is everything all right?"

"Yes. I can't apologize enough to you, for not realizing what you've gone through. Are going through."

"You don't have to."

"I do. But at least now I know. That makes is easier to deal with. You tell me, I tell you. Everything. All right?"

"Everything. Yes."

She's silent again for a while before speaking. "Do you know how much I love you? You could say this so much better than I can, but I love you more than any sappy song or perfect poem could express. I love you with every part of me, even the broken parts. Especially the broken parts. You make me feel as though nothing is broken. Do you know that? I love you in ways I never thought I could. If it takes having a car explode and the door flattening me to make me fully understand it, and to make me understand how important it is to tell you, then I don't care about anything else."

He coughs before saying, "You're wrong."

"Wrong? About what?"

"I couldn't say it any better than you did."

TBC

A/N Thank you all, and a special thanks (_et merci_) to the guest reviewers whom I cannot thank elsewhere.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

It's been a long, grueling month for both of them, but ultimately a rewarding one, and tonight they're in a celebratory mood because they've survived March.

"It never occurred to me that seeing a psychiatrist would be this much work," he says, dropping down next to her on the sofa, his legs splayed in front of him.

"That's the point," she says, elbowing him lightly. "It's supposed to be hard. That's how you know it's working. Like PT."

"PT could stand for psychological therapy, too, then. Or psychiatric torture, which you never warned me about, by the way."

"Really, Castle? Doctor Leon tortures you? With that sweet, gorgeous English accent? And she's five feet tall on a good day."

"Tiny terrors. They're the worst."

"But you love her."

"I do. Not the way I love you, though."

"I should hope not. Besides, she's old enough to be your mother."

"Leave my mother out of this, Doctor Freud."

"Much as I love her? Gladly."

He feels slightly dizzy looking at her. Giddy, even. Her cheeks are flushed. She has no make up on and she's wearing baggy yoga pants, a long-sleeved jersey with a raveled cuff, and bunny slippers. He'd given those to her a few days ago for an Easter present, and she's hardly taken them off since. "The best is the pink satin inside the ears," she'd said this morning, beaming like a five-year-old who very much believes in the Easter Rabbit.

He's seen her in eye-popping lingerie, second-skin dresses, a bikini made with limited fabric and limitless imagination, and, of course, in nothing at all. Every day now he experiences the joy of seeing her in nothing at all. But bunny slippers or no, right this minute she looks sexier than he's ever seen her, and he's sure that she doesn't know it, which only heightens the sexiness.

"How was your session?" she asks.

"Exhausting but good. Really, really good. Did you thank Burke for recommending her?"

"Yes. Every time I see him I thank him for you."

"Just checking."

"Speaking of just checking, did you see what's on the kitchen counter?"

He turns his head and squints. Oh. Oh. "Is that what I think?"

"Depends on what you think," she says with a giggle.

He's still not used to hearing her giggle. It does all sorts of things to him, psychologically and physically. "I think it's a bottle of red wine. Plus two glasses."

"Bingo. And guess what? While you were at Doctor Leon's, I went across the street to the liquor store and bought it. All by myself. On my crutches. Took my backpack so I could carry it home safely."

He's stunned. No wonder her cheeks are rosy. "You did?"

"I wanted to surprise you."

"It worked." His heart is racing. "But wasn't that risky? You could have just taken out a bottle that's already here. It's not as if we don't have–"

"Castle." There's a slight edge to her voice, and he immediately regrets having said risky. "You have to trust me. I've been working on this. Practicing. Really hard. I need some independence. It's not as though I jaywalked or raced against the light, okay?"

He leans sideways and kisses her. "I'm sorry. You're right."

"I wasn't taking chances, I promise. I talked to Mike about it a lot during PT. He gave me his blessing."

"Good." He'd been so shocked by her revelation about walking across the street that the dawn only now breaks on something else. "Wait, wait. Wine? Does this mean?"

"Yeah." Her smile is so jubilant that he wishes he could freeze the moment. "I'm off the pain killers. I can drink. As of about two hours ago, but I was waiting for you." It's her turn to lean sideways and kiss him. "Want to go get it and bring it over here?"

No answer is required, and despite his emotional exhaustion after an hour with Dr. Leon, he runs to the kitchen to fetch the tray. "I see you already opened it," he says as he crosses the room.

"Half an hour ago. To let it breathe."

"Perfect timing," he says, pouring them each a glass. He sets his down, picks up the bottle again, goggles at the label, and whistles. "Wow. Double wow. Château Pétrus. I've been wanting to try this forever."

"I remember," she says a little shyly. "I looked it up, and called the store. They had to order it. Better be worth it."

"Oh, it will be. But it must have cost you a fortune." He's not certain about her response. Money is a seldom-spoken-of issue, but it's very much there, much as he wishes it weren't.

"My mother," she says slowly, looking over the rim of her glass, "had a beat-up old paperback called _Europe on $5 a Day_. From when she was a college student, and you actually could live, sort of, on five bucks a day. That's more than I've spent since I came here six weeks ago. The very least I could do is buy you a bottle of wine."

"Strictly speaking, the least you could do was buy me a bottle of Thunderbird, not one of the best Merlots on the planet." He takes a sip. "Mother of God, I have to sit down. This is unbelievable."

"You're right," she says, looking at the glass in wonder. "And not just because I haven't had any alcohol in so long."

"Is it going to your head?"

"A little, but it feels so nice. I'll just have this for now and the rest later. That okay?"

"Definitely okay. This isn't a wine to rush through."

They're both almost asleep, her head on his shoulder, when the intercom buzz from the doorman gives them a jolt.

"Wonder who that is?" he asks groggily.

"Oh, I forgot. I ordered dinner for eight o'clock and it's eight. Could you tell Mickey to send the guy up, please?"

He does, and waits at the door. "Hang on a sec, please," he says when the delivery man hands him a shopping bag from Le Petit Oiseau. He's trying to fish his wallet from his pants pocket when the man shakes his head.

"It's already paid for," he says.

"Oh. It is? Let me give you a tip, then." He lifts the bag, dips his head and inhales. "This smells fantastic. _Formidable_, right? That's about all my French."

"The tip is taken care of, too," the man says, holding up his hands. _Bon appétit, monsieur_."

"_Merci_."

"See?" the delivery man says with a smile as he walks backwards to the elevator. "You know more French than you think."

After setting the bag on the kitchen counter he gets out two plates, place mats, napkins, and silverware. "You didn't mention that you paid for dinner," he calls to Kate as he quickly sets the table. "Hell of a restaurant, too."

"Can't have a great French wine without a great French meal," she answers, pulling her crutches from under the coffee table. "I'm on my way."

She suggests that over dinner they discuss nothing but their favorite French movies, and he's happy to agree. Among other things, it lets him hear her use a lot of French words in what he's sure is a perfect accent. "How do you make that 'ay' sound so well?" he asks, preparing to eat the lamentably last bite of his Napoleon. "I can't do it right."

"Easy. A thousand years ago my French teacher gave the class an exercise. You just purse your lips like this, and say _les bébés sont nés l'été passé_."

He clutches his dessert fork so hard that it nearly bends. "What does that mean? It's incredibly erotic."

"Erotic? Ha! Tell that to Madame Durand. It means 'the babies were born last summer'."

"Sure as hell looks erotic, with your mouth like that. And it sounds it."

"Mmmph," she says, her eyes focussed directly on his as she licks chocolate mousse from her spoon, excruciatingly slowly.

"Do you have to do that?" he asks weakly.

"What?"

"That thing with your tongue."

"I thought you liked things I do with my tongue. Especially licking."

"I do." Inwardly, he's clenching every muscle in his sex-deprived body. "I also need to change the subject. I'm going to clear away the dishes and make coffee while you stay here."

"I can help."

"Nope, you got dinner."

He dawdles over the clean-up, rinsing the takeout containers twice before dropping them into the recycling bin, scrubbing the sink until it looks as if it had never been used. He has something on his mind, and he has to be cautious, but he can't stall any more.

"Here we are," he says with what he hopes sounds like jauntiness as he hands her a cappuccino. "Perfect end to the perfect meal." He sits down and puts his arm around her shoulder. "So, what was the occasion?"

"Occasion?"

"Yeah. For the amazing dinner, wine."

"A totally inadequate way to say thank you for everything you've done since I got hurt, and to say how proud I am for the way you're handling therapy." She curls into his side.

"No thanks necessary." He tilts forward to put down his cup before he says what he really wants to say. "You know, before, when you talked about going to the liquor store." He pauses.

"Yes."

"You said you took your backpack so that you could carry the wine home safely. Not bring it back, or even just carry it, but carry it _home_. You called this home." He's afraid that he might have spooked her and that she'll go rigid, but she doesn't. She's impossibly softer against him.

"I guess I did." It's a whisper, but a clear one.

"I want you to think of it as home, all the time. I want this to be your home." It nearly kills him to wait for her answer, but patience is something else he has worked on.

He feels her forehead pressing into his bicep. "It's a big step," she says into his shirt. "Huge."

Another silence.

"I've never lived with anyone since I moved out of my parents' house."

More silence.

"I have to think about it for a while."

He's not counting the seconds, he's not. Truly.

"I need to sleep on it. Need to sleep."

That's enough for him, for now. She didn't say no. "Okay. It's late. Let's go to bed."

Five minutes later they're side by side at the matching sinks in the bathroom, brushing their teeth. She hasn't said a thing since she said she needed to think about his offer/request/plea. His words, not hers, but once they're in bed she gives him a quick, minty kiss. "Night, Castle," she says, slides under the covers and closes her eyes. He looks at her and feels hope settling on him like the lightest, most luxurious cashmere blanket, and his eyes close of their own accord.

This is a dream, right? Must be. But it's so vivid it's almost real. There's a feathery breath against his ear, and his favorite voice is saying, "Are you awake? Wake up." He has no intention of waking up, not from this five-star dream in which a warm and very familiar hand has just slithered inside his pajama bottoms and the hand's fingers are now wrapping around him. Oh, how he's missed this.

He hears himself half groan, half hum, _mmmmmmmm_.

"Wake up, birthday boy." The voice is so sultry. Irresistible.

Does he dare open one eye? The hand is beginning to move. Both eyes open. "Kate? 'zat you?"

"I hope no one else is doing what I'm doing to you."

"What time is it?"

"Not what I expected you to say, but it's one minute past midnight. It's your birthday. I have a present for you."

"Can't be any better than uh,"

"It is 'uh.' When the doctor cleared me for alcohol this afternoon, she also cleared me for sex."

"Really?"

"Really. Just have to be a little careful. 'Do as much as you're comfortable with,' she said."

"You sure?"

"Don't I seem sure, Castle? Are you comfortable?"

"Very comfortable. Not the first word that springs to mind, but yes. Are you?"

"Yes, but I'll feel even more comfortable when you–" She can't say any more because his mouth has suddenly enveloped hers.

TBC

**A/N** Thanks for all the wonderful feedback.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** This chapter has an M-rated section, which you may skip if you like. Stop reading at "she was almost wild" and start again with the paragraph that begins "With the tip of her index finger."

Kate Beckett has never been physically cautious–not as a toddler who successfully scaled the so-called child-proof gate; not as a third grader who fell from the tree she was climbing, broke her arm, and refused to cry; not as a scooter-riding adolescent who ran off the road on more occasions than anyone knew about, and not as a cop. Especially not as a cop.

Emotionally cautious, though, is another thing. She guarded her heart for so long, locked it up in a strongbox inside a safe with a combination that only she knew. Until there was Castle. She held him off for years, until one rainy night she didn't. In dark moments she sometimes regrets not having let him in sooner, except maybe when she did it was precisely the right time. Who knows? All that matters is that it's right now, and as far as she's concerned it will be right for the rest of her life.

Circumstances have forced her to be physically cautious for almost two months. Finally yesterday–and tonight–she got her long-awaited reprieve. Thrilling as it was to go out on her own, even for less than 100 yards, to be independent for five minutes, it doesn't begin to compare with the euphoria of the last hour. She knows that she exceeded her limits because her leg and her ribs are protesting, but she doesn't care. It was more than worth it, even if she's hobbling around in the morning. She's lying on her back because it's still the only position in which she's completely comfortable, and she's turned her head to look at Castle, who's sound asleep on his side. She's still buzzing, and idiotically proud that she has, temporarily, worn him out. Granted, he had to do more of the work–wrong as it is to think of the sex they just had as work–than usual.

She's longed for this, ached for it. Not only the sex itself, the physicality of it, the fun of it, the rush of it, but the intimacy, the kind of talk they have afterwards, the deep, deep, deep love. Her face flushes as she thinks of her choice of word: deep. He went physically deep a while ago, deeper than she could believe or even imagine, and though she knows that it's not possible, she feels as if he's still inside her, the astonishingly powerful presence of him. He teased her, edged her, until she was almost wild.

"Castle, please. I can't take it any longer."

"Really? This doesn't feel good, Kate? It feels as if it feels good." He was looming over her, grinning, when a drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face and landed on her cheek. He stopped.

"Sweet Jesus, how can you stand it? C'mon, I can't wait anymore. I swear to God I'm going to explode."

That was when he pinched her nipple and asked, "Isn't that the point? To explode? And you've waited this long, why not wait a little longer? Won't it be even better?" Before she could protest, he pulled back again. She wanted to bite his arm, but she couldn't reach. She'd have kicked him if could, but she's not up to that yet, either. And then his eyes changed, a kind of hyper focus that she's never seen. He drove in to her without warning, full force, his fingers everywhere, and she did explode. It was like a long-fuse detonation, that orgasm, and it was still going on when he spilled into her. She squeezes her sticky thighs together at the memory.

With the tip of her index finger hovering a millimeter above his skin, she traces the outline of his nose, his lips, his chin. When she gets to the hollow between his collarbones, she stops. It's one of the parts of his body that she most loves. The skin there is softer than almost anything she's ever felt, and it's just above his massive, muscular chest. She remembers the first time her tongue touched the hollow. They'd been together only about a week and she'd accidentally splashed water from a bottle onto him. A little pool of it had gathered there, and she'd rolled on top of him and lapped up the water. It had made him shiver beneath her.

"Never knew the suprasternal notch could be so erotic, Castle."

"I can't believe you know the name for it."

"Learned it in biology class."

"Bet you didn't learn what you did to me just now in biology class."

"You're right." Sliding down his body she'd added, "Didn't learn this there, either. Figured it all out by myself."

The vivid recollection makes a laugh tumble out of her, and it wakes the sleeping giant. "Hey," she says.

"Hey." He wiggles his toes against her uninjured foot.

"How's your birthday so far?"

"So far? When you ask me that it makes me think that you have more amazing things planned."

"Like a middle-of-the night shower?"

"Definitely in the amazing things category."

"Okay, then. Let's go."

Afterwards they each put on one of his tee shirts and go back to bed. She has something she wants, needs, to say now, and not put off until morning. "You remember what I told you five weeks ago, the night you promised me that you'd see a therapist?"

"You told me a lot of things."

"I told you how much I loved you."

"Won't ever forget that. You claimed that you couldn't express yourself nearly as well as I, and I told you were wrong. And you were."

"I didn't say enough. What I mean is, things have changed. I love you even more than I did then. I do. You've done so much tough work in the last month, Castle, and I feel as though you did it for me. I mean, it's for you, but I forced you to it."

"It's for both of us," he says, scooting over until there's no space between them. "You didn't force me to it, this whole fucking mess did. But I will be forever grateful to you, with every breath, for insisting that I go."

"Do you know what you've done for me?" she asks, running her hand around the shell of his ear. "You've made me understand the limitless possibilities of love. I never believed in that before you." She sees, almost feels, him swallow hard. "It's your birthday, and I thought it was important to tell you that today."

"Best present ever," he says, huskily.

"Are you crying?"

"Maybe."

"That's another thing I love about you, that you cry."

"You don't think it's wimpy?"

"Seriously? Just the opposite. But listen." She stops. "Here's the other thing. Yes."

"Yes? Yes what?"

She moves her arm so that she can pull his head onto her chest. " 'I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes'."

He gasps. "Oh, my God. You're quoting _Ulysses_ to me."

"I was. But now it's me talking, not James Joyce. Yes, I will move in with you. Yes, I want to move in with you. Yes, I want this to be home, all the time. Yes."

And then he kisses her with such sweetness, which builds incrementally into such passion that if someone had asked her who had said that to whom in Ulysses she'd have been incapable of answering the question.

"Do you think," he murmurs against her neck, "that there's a twenty-four hour moving company in New York? That I could call right now?"

"Don't need a moving company, Castle. It's just gonna be my clothes and books and a couple of little things. I'll give everything else away."

"I've seen your closet, remember? You need a moving company."

"But not this minute," she says, and yawns loudly. "I have to sleep."

"Fair enough."

"I have to sleep in our bed. This bed. At home."

That's the last thing she remembers until two things wake her up, a long time later. One is the sound of thunder, and of rain against the windows; the other is the smell of coffee. She lifts her head from the pillow and sees Castle standing at the bottom of the bed. He's naked, and holding a mug in each hand. "You're not wearing anything," she says unnecessarily.

"Yes, I am."

"The emperor's new clothes?"

"Nooooo," he responds, with mock patience. "My birthday suit. It's my birthday, so I'm wearing my birthday suit."

"Glad it still fits. Is one of those coffees for me?"

He climbs onto the bed and hands her one of the mugs. "It is. Here you go. All the comforts of home, because this is home."

She takes a sip. Ouch, it's hot, even for her all-but-asbestos mouth. "Be careful. Don't want to burn your birthday suit. Specially the bottom half." If she weren't still so incapacitated she'd have jumped him, right there. A naked Castle makes her ovaries jump and her–

"You're right," he says cheerfully if unknowingly interrupting her X-rated thoughts. He sets his coffee aside and gets out of bed. "Wow. Just realized that I've gotta throw some clothes on and go downstairs."

"Downstairs?"

"To the lobby."

"Why?"

"You'll see." He disappears into the walk-in closet and soon emerges in jeans and a shirt that he's buttoning as he heads to his office. When he comes back a few moments later he's clutching an unrecognizable little gizmo. "Top or bottom?"

"Top or bottom what?"

"Your name."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is a label maker. I have to put your name on my mailbox–our mailbox–in the mailroom." He jabs his fingers against the gizmo seven times. "There. B-E-C-K-E-T-T. See?"

He's so unrestrainedly happy that she can only smile.

"You want your name above mine or below?"

"Well, you know I like being on top, so I guess above."

"Why, Katherine," he says primly, tossing his head. "Such language. I'll be right back."

She hears him whistling as he trots towards the front door, and she laughs. It's Cole Porter's "You're the Top." She scrunches up her nose, shuts her eyes, and slaps her hands on the bed, again and again. "I'm in love," she says, shaking her head while "You're the Top" runs through it. "I'm in love with a guy who's delirious over making a mailbox label of my last name. How did I get this lucky?" She picks up his pillow, covers her face with it, and inhales the addictive smell of him. Dropping the pillow onto her lap, she thinks, _it may be his birthday, but it feels a hell of a lot like mine_.

Oohh. Oooooohhhhh. She has an idea, and if she she's lucky and she hurries, she can set things in motion before he gets back. She reaches for her phone, does a quick Google search, makes a call, and finishes just as the front door clicks open.

"You hungry?" he calls from the living room.

"Starving."

"Would you like some eggs?"

"Yes, please. And bacon."

She really does want them, but what she wants even more is to keep him occupied for a bit. She takes her phone into the bathroom, shuts the door, and dials two people, the second being Lanie.

"Thank you," she says at the end of their brief conversation. "Yes, I know I owe you. I promise I'll tell you everything. Every sizzling detail? Yes. Well, almost. And yes, over the best wine I can find. Bye."

She hastily pulls on a tunic and soft, wide-leg pants–her go-to recovery uniform since it requires no buttoning or zipping and has plenty of room for her injured leg–and arrives at the table just as Castle is filling their plates. "I should have been doing this, birthday boy. I'll make it up to you."

"When you can walk around and stand for a while without those," he says, nodding towards her crutches, "you can. Speaking of which, what time is Mark coming today?"

"He's not. I cancelled PT today."

"You did?" His mug is bright blue and it's stopped in midair, next to his jaw. The proximity makes his eyes even bluer than usual. He should use that mug every day. Forget about all the others. Give them away and replace them with an entire cabinet of blue mugs. "Kate? Are you okay?"

It's only then that she understands that she's been staring at him. "Don't it make my brown eyes blue," she sings.

"I always loved that song. Haven't thought of it in ages." Understandably, he appears confused. "What brought it on?"

"You have the most beautiful eyes, Castle. Do you know that? When I was in middle school people were always saying how gorgeous my best friend's blue eyes were. Made me wish I could turn my brown eyes blue. But your eyes are ten times more beautiful than hers."

"Wow. Thank you."

Is it possible? Is he? "Are you embarrassed?"

"A little, maybe."

"That's adorable."

For the record, your eyes are a perfect color. Colors, really. I'm glad they're not blue. Now, eat your eggs before they get cold."

"We can dawdle today. It's your birthday."

"Wait, is that why you cancelled PT?"

"Yup." She swallows a bite of bacon. "You ready for your birthday present?"

"Unless I was dreaming, and I have fingernail marks on my ass that prove I wasn't, I distinctly remember that you already gave me my birthday present. About ten hours ago. At one minute past midnight."

"That was your first present. I didn't know if I'd be able to deliver–"

He laughs so hard that he drops his toast. "Oh, you delivered."

"Yeah, well I didn't know if I'd be strong enough for sex on your birthday so I did have something else. It's hidden underneath my socks. In a padded envelope. Want to go get it?"

He's already out of his chair. "No peeking," she says to his retreating back. "I want you to see you open it."

"Can't tell what it is," he says shortly after, as he re-enters the room waving the small package.

"Sorry it's not wrapped. Properly, I mean. With a ribbon and everything. I wanted to get it framed but I couldn't, so I leave that up to you. It's between the two pieces of glass just to protect it."

He slides his finger under the envelope flap and carefully extracts the present, which is a scrap of paper not quite the size of an index card. "Oh," he says, probably unaware that his right hand has moved over his heart. "Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming's autograph." He looks across the table at her, his expression one of someone who just discovered the secret of life. "I can't believe it."

"You're the man who has everything. Almost, anyway. It's not easy to surprise you. But I know what the Bond books mean to you, and I knew you didn't have Fleming's autograph. I hope you l like it."

He pushes himself up and runs around to her. "Thank you," he says, his hands cradling her face. "Thank you. Thank you." And then he kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her. His tongue is doing all kinds of things to her, all of them arousing, and when she moans, not deliberately, his hand moves under her shirt.

"Not here," she manages to say. "Can we go back to bed?"

"I thought you'd never ask." He gathers her up and adds, "I'm carrying you. Saves time."

Draped over his shoulder, her legs dangling against his torso, she can feel against her shin the pronounced and very hard bulge in his pants. "Good," she says. " 'cause I don't think you're gonna keep me waiting the way you did earlier."

"Not a chance."

They're still in a post-coital haze when the house phone goes off. "Oh, my God," she says. "I didn't think they'd be here this soon."

"Who?"

"You'll see. Please, just answer the doorman. See if you can stall them for a minute or two. Oh, and put on some clothes."

"Are we having company? Because you're starkers, too, you know."

"I know, I know."

Castle returns from the call carrying her crutches, and they've both just finished dressing when the doorbell rings. "Gonna fill me in?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You'll find out in a second. Let's go."

When Castle opens the door she can see nothing but two luggage carts, both piled high with heavy plastic crates. Seemingly on their own, the carts roll into the loft; it's only then that she sees that they're propelled from the rear by two very large moving men.

"Hi," Castle says, obviously baffled.

"Afternoon," the two men say. "Where do you want these?"

Before he can ask what they are she points behind her. "Right through the living room, please. If you could leave them at the door to the office there, that would be great."

"What is all that?" a dumbfounded Castle asks.

"My clothes. And my books. I called this morning to get it done. They were incredibly fast, just like their website claims. The super let them in and Lanie supervised the packing."

"Yes, me. Lanie the supervisor," the ME says as she steps in from the corridor. "I understand congratulations on in order." She gives both of them a quick hug and seizes Kate's elbow. "Come into the kitchen," she mutters.

"Thanks, Lanie," she says, propped up against the counter. "I can't thank you enough."

"I interrupt something?"

"Interrupt? No, no. We just finished a late breakfast. Haven't done the dishes yet."

"Uh, huh. That doesn't explain that." She points at Kate's head. "' cause if that isn't sex hair, I don't know what is."

TBC

**A/N** Thank you for your continued support for this story. It means more than you can imagine.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** I apologize for the long delay since the previous chapter, but there were good reasons.

"Don't even think about denying it," Lanie says, wagging a finger at Kate, who is still propped up on her crutches in the kitchen. "And you didn't finish breakfast either. I saw all that still food on the table. You and Castle decide that you were better than bacon and eggs and bacon, huh? 'cause it's pretty obvious that the two of you rolled out of bed ten seconds before I got here, and I want details."

"C'mon, Lane, how long have we been friends? You know I'm not a kiss-and-teller."

"I'm not interested in hearing about a kiss, Kate. I want the real thing here. You owe me. I gave up three hours of beauty sleep–which I need a hell of a lot more than you do–to supervise those guys who were packing up your clothes and books." She pauses briefly to take an orange from the bowl on the counter, and peels it as she continues her assault. "And by the way, where did you find them? I've never seen anyone work that fast. They're like the Usain Bolt of movers."

"Online. About a zillion recommendations." She balances on one crutch so that she can grab a slice of fruit from Lanie's hand. "Plus the cash bonus I offered might have been, you know, considerable motivation."

"Uh, huh. As I was saying, you owe me some details about you and lover boy." She licks juice from her thumb and waits for a response. When she gets nothing but pursed lips, she continues, "Of course I could ask Javi to ask Castle. Boys will be boys, you know."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Okay, okay, okay," Kate says, waving her hand in semi-defeat. "I'll tell you this much. Castle is a writer."

"I'm aware of that."

"He makes an amazing living with his imagination."

"Well aware of that, too," she says, looking over her shoulder and then back again. "Being a police consultant doesn't pay for a place like this."

"Mm hmm. So let me just say that I've never experienced a better use of his imagination than I did in the last few hours."

There's a silence of several seconds before the exasperated ME sputters, "Really? That's it?"

Kate looks at the floor, and her cheeks redden as she raises her head. "All right, I'll give you this." It's her turn to wait. She raises one eyebrow and finally adds, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." And then she starts laughing so hard that she has to lean on the counter to keep from toppling over.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett!" Lanie gasps, before she cracks up, too.

"What's so funny?" Castle asks, following the howls into the kitchen.

"Nothing," Kate insists, squinting at Lanie and mouthing, "_Eyes up, sister._"

"Not nothing, Castle. It's really something kind of big, but it's just girl talk. You know."

"So you're not gonna tell me?"

"Not a chance," Kate insists.

Castle puts his arm around her shoulder and beams. "Bet I can get it out of her, Doctor Parish."

At which point Lanie, who had popped a section of orange into her mouth, nearly chokes. Once she recovers, she grins wickedly. "You have no idea."

Rather than reply to her, he whispers into Kate's ear, "Isn't that your line?"

There's a slight shuffling of work boots behind the trio. " 'Scuse me," one of the muscle-man moving team says. "We unloaded everything where you said. The crates." He's holding a clipboard in one hand and offers it to Kate. "You wanna check 'em?"

"Nope. We're good. I'll text you when I've unpacked so you can pick up the crates, right?"

"Right."

"My friend here," she tilts her head towards Lanie, "says you were incredible, and she's not easy to please."

"Yeah, well, she's a hell of a supervisor. Pardon my French."

"I'm a cop." She signs the paper and gives him back the clipboard. "I hear a lot worse than that every day. I'd have said 'kick-ass supervisor,' but I think you were being polite. Hang on a sec." She inches towards Castle and asks quietly, "Could you get my purse, please? And meet me at the door?" He squeezes her elbow and heads for their bedroom.

"Let me walk you out. My, uh, my partner is getting my wallet. It's a little tricky for me," she gestures to her crutches, "to manage on these things." By the time she thumps to the front door, Castle is there, and he's already fished out her wallet. "Thank you," she says, and smiles, but with a look that she knows he'll understand means _I love you, but please leave_. When he retreats, she takes out a wad of bills and presses them into the hand of the man who's next to her. "Thanks again. Both of you. I really appreciate it."

"Us, too," Mover One says.

"Ma'am," Mover Two says, as both stride towards the elevator.

"Oh, my God," she mutters after closing the door and heading to the kitchen, where Castle and Lanie are perched on a pair of stools. "He called me ma'am. I feel like I'm a hundred years old."

"Would brunch revive you?" he asks cheerfully.

"Dunno about her, but it'd do a lot for me," Lanie says. "Whatcha got?"

"You have to ask? He has everything on the planet here."

"He does, eh? Okay, how about oysters?"

"Not fresh," he says, apologetically, as if no self-respecting person should ever be without a dozen perfect bivalves. "But I made oyster stew day before yesterday and froze it. I can heat it up in about two minutes."

"Sold," the doctor says. "You got Champagne with that? Because I'd say this day deserves bubbly."

Three bowls of oyster stew, one large green salad, two warm baguettes, an ice-cold bottle of Dom Pérignon, and unlimited laughs later, they're all but collapsed around the dining table. "Sorry," Kate says suddenly, picking up her phone. "Forgot I had to make a call. Be right back."

Castle leans in Lanie's direction. "How much did she tip those guys?"

"What guys?"

"Pick and Up. The moving guys. Look like they could bench press my car with one arm."

"Five hundred bucks."

"Wow. No wonder they looked so happy."

"Each."

"Each? She gave them five hundred each?"

"Yup. Told me it's the best thousand dollars she ever spent." She pins him down with her eyes. "She's crazy in love with you. You know that, right?"

"I do."

"Just took her a long time to admit it."

"I know."

"It's the way she's wired."

"I know that, too. And Lanie?"

"Yes?"

"I'm crazy in love with her, too."

"I know." She looks seriously at him, then points a well-manicured finger at the Champagne. "Is there anything left in there?"

"Not here. But I have another bottle chilled. I'll get it."

His back is to Kate when she slips into the loft. Neither he nor Lanie had seen her go out into the corridor, but she's dangling a shopping bag from her left hand. "Lanie," she hisses. "Come help me, please."

Her friend gets up, runs to meet her, and takes the bag. "What's this?"

"It's from Duane Park Patisserie," she answers. "I ordered it the other day. Had to meet the delivery guy at the elevator a second ago. Could you put it on the table, please?"

"Sure."

Kate has just opened the box and maneuvered it in front of Castle's place when he returns with the new bottle. "What's that?"

"Close your eyes for a minute, okay?"

"Okay."

She takes out the cake and a small box of candles, and puts one in each of the cake's four corners before lighting them with a pack of matches that she'd had in her back pocket. "You can look now, Castle. Happy Birthday."

""Oooo," he says, looking stunned as he sets down the unopened bottle of Dom Pérignon. "Is that?"

"Is that the cover of _Heat Wave_ wrought in frosting? It is."

He looks appraisingly at the dessert. "Wow. And it's exactly the size of the book, isn't it?"

"Exactly. And two books high. Couldn't give you a one-layer cake. Better blow out the candles, though, before they drip onto some strategic part of Nikki."

"The strategic parts aren't in the corners. Still, point taken." He closes his eyes and blows, and the two women in the room applaud wildly.

They never get around to the Champagne, choosing coffee instead to go with the cake.

"Now that I've shot my diet to Hell," Lanie says afterwards, licking the last bit of chocolate from her fork, "I'm gonna get a cab home and take a nap.

"Take this with you, please," Castle urges, passing her the Dom Perignon. "You earned it."

"And more," Kate adds.

"Thank you. I wil.l And thank you for that incredible meal, Castle." She narrows her eyes at Kate. "I'll collect on that I.O.U later."

"I wouldn't mind a nap myself," Kate says after Lanie has left.

"Neither would I. Might this be a nap with benefits?" he asks hopefully.

"Might be, birthday boy."

At 5:45 they're still in bed. "Those were incredible benefits," he says, rolling onto his side and kissing her bare shoulder. "I should've asked you to move in here a long time ago."

"I wasn't ready then."

"I know. Glad you are now."

"Me, too," she says, pushing the hair from his forehead. "Wanna help me unpack?"

It's almost midnight by the time they finish. "I can't believe you have that many clothes," he says, flopping down wearily on the love seat in his office.

"Really? You're the one who's always waxing eloquent about things from my wardrobe that I'd forgotten I owned. Like that gray jacket."

He gasps and half sits up, supported by one elbow. "How could you not remember that? It's the one you were wearing two years ago when you said you'd break me out of jail."

"It is? Are you sure?"

Another gasp. "Am I sure? I wanted to preserve it in amber. After taking it off you, of course. And everything else you were wearing." He smiles. "You sure you're okay about your books?"

"Yes. It's a good temporary solution, putting them in the guest room until I can sort them out. They're not in the way there. I'm sorry you had to haul them upstairs by yourself, though."

"Ah, Beckett. I'm your willing beast of burden." He yawns noisily. "But all I want now is to wash all this grime off me in a hot shower and go to sleep."

"Next year I'll give you a party."

"You will?"

"Yeah, but forget I said anything. I want it to be a surprise."

That had been two weeks ago, two weeks since she officially took up residence on Broome Street, and she's still astonished every day by how comfortable she feels. How easy it was, once she took the leap. She's considerably stronger now, but nowhere near able to return to work. She's not stir-crazy, but she does miss the Twelfth, the adrenaline, the challenges, the camaraderie.

But the best thing that's happened in these two weeks is that Castle has begun to write again. Really write. Until then he had been so consumed by rage at Bracken and his own feelings of guilt–which he insists are rational and she insists aren't–that he couldn't write a thing. But with the help of his therapist and (she hopes) a little from her, he's letting go of that and has gradually returned to his desk, sometimes for hours at a stretch. She listens for the soft clicks of his fingers on the keyboard, and the faint whoosh of the top when he shuts down his laptop, and it fills her with joy.

"You know what I was thinking?" he'd asked yesterday, as he rolled his chair away from the desk in early afternoon. "I was thinking of inviting the boys over tomorrow."

"That's nice. Is there an occasion? You three have a new game to play or something?"

"Nooo. The occasion is that you miss , too. And you miss work, even though you've been really good about not saying so, lest you wound my tender masculine ego."

"Oh, please. Your tender masculine ego is doing just fine."

"That's because you massage it so well."

"Oh, brother."

"And you massage other things so well, too."

She'd rewarded him with her best double eye roll, because she knows he loves it. "Uh huh."

"It'd be great though, wouldn't it? Have Ryan and Esposito over here for more than ten minutes. We can drink beer and eat junk food and talk about our favorite disgusting cases."

"You mean like the two severed hands we found on the manicurist's table?"

"Yeah. I really regret missing that one."

And so it is that at six o'clock this evening, while she's ordering two pizzas and Castle is putting four kinds of chips and a stack of napkins on the coffee table, the doorman calls to say that Detectives O'Ryan and Exposito are on their way up.

"O'Ryan?" Castle asks as he opens the door. "Ryan alone wasn't Irish enough for him? And Exposito, huh? Sounds like a porn star."

"Where's Beckett?" the visitors ask as one.

"You two are beginning to sound like Castle and me," she says, trying to hug both of them at the same time.

"Careful," Espo says. "Don't make me drop this box. We brought you something."

"Didn't have to do that, guys."

"It was Castle's idea," Ryan says, hanging his jacket on the coat racket. "We told him that slob DeVito who's filling in from the two-nine was using your desk and always knocking stuff onto the floor, so he asked us to bring your things over here. You know, until you come back."

"Give the place some class," Espo says, with a straight face. "Where do you want me to put it?"

She sits down on the sofa and extends her arms. "Give it to me. I've missed all this." She peels off the tape on the box and peers inside. "Did you bring my Yankee batting helmet piggy bank?"

"Yup."

"My stapler that I've had since the Academy?"

"Wouldn't dream of leaving that for DeVito."

"Castle's ball of rubber bands?"

"Of course."

"Ohhh," she says, reaching in to the box and pulling something out. "My elephants. You remembered my elephants. See this, Castle?"

She holds them up, but for some reason they slip from her fingers, land hard on the edge of the table, and split open. "Oh, my God," she says, her hand flying to her mouth.

"I'll get them," Castle says. "Don't worry. We can glue them together. Don't worry."

"That's not it," she says, her voice shaking. "That's not–. Oh, my God. Look what was hidden inside them. It's a cassette."

TBC

**A/N** This is a terrible time almost everywhere on our beleaguered planet. I hope that you are safe and healthy. I'm grateful for you and for fanfiction for helping me to forget about the pandemic for just a while.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** You will recognize the words on the cassette, which in canon were heard in "Veritas," the next-to-last episode of S6. The circumstances in this story are, of course, very different.

Esposito is closest to where the cassette lands on the floor, and picks it up, while Ryan collects the pieces of the ceramic elephants.

"Castle's right. I think we can glue them all back together, Beckett," he says, reassuringly. "The three breaks are pretty clean."

"Thanks, Ryan. Thank you."

"What's with the cassette?" Castle asks, his face pinched with worry and his hand on her uninjured thigh. "It completely spooked you. What is it? You look terrified."

"The instant I saw it, I knew."

"Knew what?" Esposito is cradling the cassette in his palm, unsure what to do with it.

She takes a long, deep breath, but her voice emerges shakily. "Ever since I found out about Montgomery's involvement in my mother's death, ever since last May, something's been in the back of my mind. I couldn't shake it loose. I've gone over and over and over something he said to me when I was a rookie. I'd forgotten all about it and until I was recovering last summer–. I had all that time, you know. By myself." She rubs her forehead. "I." She stops. And when she starts again her mouth can barely keep pace with her brain.

"He asked me. He asked then. One night he saw me in the basement, the archives, and wanted to know what I was doing there. I told him about my mom's case. Just a little bit. What I finally remembered was that he wondered if I'd gone through her personal things, like notebooks and journals. And then he said, 'Cassette recordings?' But I hadn't thought about it for ages, not that part. Not cassettes. Who does that any more? Think about cassettes? And Montgomery told me, 'Keep looking. You never know when something might turn up.' I must have gone through everything of my mom's a hundred times. Never found any kind of cassette. So when I dropped the elephants a minute ago, it all came rushing–"

She stops again, but this time she shoves her hands under her legs, and bends over until her head is almost on her lap. And then she begins to keen, a sound that is both otherworldly and too much of this world, like a wild animal in a trap. Castle quickly moves onto the sofa and sits next to her, his right palm resting lightly on the middle of her spine, his left softly stroking her hair. The three guests look terrified, and stay in place.

"Kate," he says, at last. "Kate. Beckett. What can I do? What can we do?"

She straightens up, and presses the heels of her hands on her cheekbones. Tears are still running down her face. "It had to be my mom's. The cassette. She had to have hidden it in there. Maybe she was scared. Do you think she was?" She looks first at Castle, then at her friends. "Do you think she was scared? Maybe she knew something was going to happen. Thought it could. She loved the elephants, she knew my dad and I did. Especially me. The three elephants were like the three of us. A family, she said. The elephants were a safe place because no one else would know. She kept them on her desk. There was the little door in the top of one of the elephants. I didn't even realize. Goddamnit. Goddamnit. All this time it's been on my desk. On my fucking desk."

Perhaps because he's the least sentimental of the group, perhaps because he's the quickest to anger, perhaps because he has extensive military training–perhaps because of all that–Esposito is the one who takes action. "Castle," he barks, though not unkindly. "You got a cassette deck, right? Something we can play this thing on?"

"Um, yeah. Sure. I have to dig it out but–"

"Then dig, bro. Right now."

Castle stands up and nods his head. "It's somewhere in my storage locker. In the basement."

"Want me to come with you?"

"Sure. Might be faster."

Esposito takes off for the door, Castle trailing him by a few steps. The tender-hearted Ryan is left alone with Beckett. "You okay, Beckett? Can I get you something? Tea, something? My Nanna Rose always had tea at a time like this."

"Your Nanna Rose had a time like this?" she asks, tilting her head so that she can look him in the eyes. "I sure as hell hope not, Kevin."

"Not exactly like this. But shock, when she had a shock or stress. She had twelve kids, so she had plenty of both, believe me."

"Okay, then, I'll take Nanna Rose's advice. Anything to calm me down. There are all kinds of tea bags in the cabinet to the right of the fridge, if you don't mind making it."

While he's in the kitchen, she goes through every meditation exercise that Burke has ever given her. They work, to a point. "At least I'm not hysterical," she says to herself as Ryan approaches, carrying two mugs.

"Chamomile."

"Let me guess. Nanna Rose's favorite?"

"Yup. Especially on a Friday night if Granda Liam drank half his pay at the pub on the way home."

They're halfway through their tea when the two storage-room foragers rush through the door. "We got it," Castle exclaims unnecessarily, clutching a cassette player in his hand. "I'm just gonna replace the batteries and we're good to go."

"Beckett?" Espo asks softly. "Are you ready for this? We have no idea what's on it. If it's nothing, you'll be disappointed."

She shakes her head. "Can't be nothing. Mom wouldn't have hidden it that well if it was nothing."

"Point taken. But what if it's, I dunno, her talking, and–. It'll upset you is all."

"Thanks, Javi," she replies over the lump that just appeared in her throat. "Thanks. I'll be okay."

Castle is on his way in. "Everything's set."

"Hang on," she says. "We have all that pizza. No one's eaten, you guys must be starving since you put in a full day. Let's have that first. Before we, before we, uh," she waves in the direction of the cassette player. "Before we do this."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Probably should heat it up, though. The pizza."

"I'll help you, Castle," Ryan says, picking up his cue and walking towards the kitchen.

"This could be it," she says a moment later, turning to Espo. "I just feel like it is. I do. I'm not usually one to go by my gut, but I am."

"I know. And whatever, no matter what, we got your back. 'kay?"

"'kay. Oh, here comes dinner."

She forces herself to nibble on a slice and sip at a beer, but her stomach won't allow any more than that. She enjoys seeing the others enjoy themselves. She's well aware that they're keeping things light for her, and it's sweet. It's a diversionary tactic, but it can last only as long as the pizza does.

Castle wipes his face and hands with a paper napkin, crumples it up, and drops it on his plate. "I think it's time."

Afraid to test her voice, she merely nods. The cassette player is at the center of the coffee table, and Castle starts it. At first they hear nothing but footsteps, then a door creaking, and chair legs scraping on a floor. And then the voice that shoots acid straight through her system spills into the loft. It's Bracken, speaking to Detective Raglan, the man who was shot through the head when she and Castle were having coffee with him a couple of years ago.

_"You've got a lot of balls coming here,"_ Bracken says. The tape is at least 15 years old, a long time ago, when he was an assistant district attorney. Long before he became a U.S. Senator and aspiring Presidential candidate.

_"Look."_ That's another voice, a voice that she has held dear for so long, no matter what. It's Montgomery. She doesn't dare look at the others. _"You took us for a lot of money, Bracken. We want assurances."_

_"Hey,"_ Bracken breaks in. _"Be happy I haven't busted the three of you for your little Mafia extortion ring."_

_"Whoa, relax,"_ her former Captain cautions.

_"No. You want assurances? I assure you that as easily as I pinned Bob Armen's murder on Pulgatti I can just as easily pin it on the cops that actually did the deed."_

"That's blackmail," Castle says. "He's admitted to blackmail."

Montgomery adds that Pulgatti knows that he's been framed and asks, _"What if someone gets on to this?"_

_"Then I'll handle them."_

_"You? How?"_ She recognizes the contemptuous tone in Montgomery's voice. He hadn't used it often, and when he had, it was best to take cover.

_"I know people, Roy. Dangerous people. Anyone gets too close, like that bitch lawyer Johanna Beckett who's been poking around? I'll have them killed. I've had people killed before."_

She clamps her hands over her ears. "Turn it off, please. Please." She'd unconsciously shut her eyes, and she doesn't have to open them to know what she'll see: four blue eyes and two brown, all staring at her with a mix of concern and pity. She straightens her spine, puts her hands on her lap, clenches them into fists, and snaps her eyelids open. "Don't look at me like that. I'm fine. Let's go get that bastard. Now."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Esposito says, arm out in perfect parallel to the floor, and palm up. If she weren't in such a state she'd tell him that he looks like a traffic cop in training. "Gates. We have to get Gates in on this."

"Seriously?" Castle gasps.

"Think about it," Ryan says. "He's right. We need her behind us on this."

"Then it's time to bring her into the loop," Kate says, pulling her phone from her pocket and bringing up her list of contacts. "Hello, Captain?" Her voice is level, with just a hint of steel. "It's Detective Beckett. Sir, I'm sorry to bother you at home, at night."

The other three hear unintelligible noise from the phone as Kate nods.

"Dinner, I got you during dinner. Should have thought, but it's–. Sir, it's about Senator Bracken. And please, before you say anything, please, hear me out. I have him on tape."

More unintelligible noise.

"Yes, sir. A tape in which he's telling Roy Montgomery that he will think nothing of killing, and I quote,'that bitch lawyer Johanna Beckett.' After which he says that he's killed people before."

The responding "WHAT?" is so loud that it's clear to everyone in the room.

"Mmhmm, I have the tape here. At Castle's loft, where I've been recovering, as you know. Esposito and Ryan are with us. I'm afraid to take it anywhere, and I'm not really mobile , so–"

Gobble, garble, gobble, garble.

"Yes, sir. That would be fine. We'll expect you in about an hour. Thank you."

She ends the call, returns the phone to her pocket, and pulls her hair away from her face. "Gonna be a long night, and we're gonna need a lot of coffee."

"Good thing I have a lot, then," Castle says. "And dessert. Snacks. We're going to need something sweet to help us deal with this."

"Is that okay with you guys?" Beckett asks her partners. "Do you mind staying? It's not exactly the evening we planned."

"Wouldn't miss it," Ryan says.

"Me, either," Esposito adds.

Since she's almost no use in the kitchen in her condition, she stays where she is while the men clear away the detritus of supper and put things in the dishwasher. She can hear them chatting, but tunes them out while she thinks about what she's going to say to Gates, and how she's going to say it. As succinctly as possible, because though the Captain likes details, what she wants first is just the essential data. Still, there's a hell of a lot of essential data to impart.

"Hello! Beckett!"

She starts. "What?" Espo is planted in front of her.

"I asked you what kinds of snacks we should have. Actually, Castle asked. I'm just the messenger."

"Sorry. My mind was–. I was trying to decide how to tell Gates about all this."

"Chronologically. Like a timeline."

"You're right. Thanks. Oh, and about snacks. Please tell Castle that I leave the choices in his gorgeous and capable hands."

Espo scrunches up his face in disgust. "Can I leave out the gorgeous part?"

"If you must."

"Trust me, I must."

She's grateful for the laugh that gives her. She watches him retreat and considers how lucky she is to have this particular trio in her life.

Exactly 59 minutes after she'd finished talking to Gates, the intercom buzzes. Castle answers, "Thank you. Yes, please have her come up." For the umpteenth time she since began working with her a year and a half ago, she wonders if the woman has some super high-end Swiss watch implanted in her brain. Maybe Roger Federer's Rolex.

Though it's Castle who opens the door, Espo and Ryan are hovering only a few feet behind him. "Good evening," they all say, one after the other. Castle takes her coat and the boys escort their boss to the living room.

She tries not to gape as they walk towards her. Victoria Gates is wearing sneakers. Sneakers! And a hoody! A demure, soft wool–maybe cashmere–hoody, but still. "Please excuse me for not getting up. I can, but it takes a while, and then I just have to sit down again."

"No apologies necessary," she says warmly, sitting in the nearest armchair. "You look really well, Kate."

Kate! She called her Kate!

"Worlds better than the last time I saw you."

"Thank you. I'm getting a lot of help, as you can see. Speaking of which, here comes Castle with coffee and snacks. No one leaves here without having a snack. It's some kind of house rule of his. Would you like some coffee before we start?"

"Please. Black."

Castle pours her a mug and passes it to her.

"You might want some cookies or nuts or something, too. I, um, I think this is going to take a while."

Though Gates maintains a pleasant demeanor, she also elevates one brow. "I imagine there's more to it than just the tape, though the tape is obviously one hell of a bombshell."

Everyone except Gates shifts slightly, and a little uncomfortably. Jump in, she tells herself, jump in. "How much do you know about my mother's murder?"

"Nothing. Nothing, really, except it was a random stabbing, and never solved."

"The first part is wrong, and the second part is wrong now, too. We've solved it. With this tape. Not solved, proved. We knew that Bracken was guilty. I'll explain everything. Esposito and Ryan have been right there with me since, well, really since the murder of Detective John Raglan, the year before Captain Montgomery was killed, but I'll start at the beginning, way before that, if that's all right."

"Please."

Even though the case runs through her veins like life's blood, even though she has lived with it so long that it has become virtually part of her DNA, when she hears herself laying it out for her boss she's surprised at how coherent it is, and how calm she is. Gates stops her only occasionally to ask a question. She tells her about her mother and the Justice Initiative, about Joe Pulgatti and Bob Armen, about Dick Coonan, about John Raglan and Gary McCallister and Hal Lockwood. When she gets to the "third cop" part of her story, she falters for a moment and Espo and Ryan pick up the thread as naturally as if they were all standing at the murder board at the precinct. It's they who explain about Montgomery, until Castle takes over and tells what happened at the hangar, and how Montgomery had called him to come get Beckett away from there.

By then she has regained her composure, and it's she who tells Gates the truth about what happened on the rooftop, when Cole Maddox got the better of her; how the very next day the four of them figured out that Bracken was the man they'd been looking for all along; how she confronted him in the kitchen of the Widmark Hotel.

"You actually slipped a phone into his pocket?" Gates asks, not masking her surprise.

"Yes."

"And told him that you had the file?"

"Yes."

"And pistol-whipped him?"

"Yes."

A long silence ensues. Gates runs her fingertips over and over her forehead, as if she were trying to seal in everything that she'd just head. "I wondered where he'd gotten that scar," she murmurs, and then shakes her head. "I never would have imagined any of this, or saying what I'm about to say, but good for you."

She puts down the mug of coffee which she's had in a death grip for well over half an hour, and turns to Castle. "Do you mind my asking if I could have something stronger?"

"Not at all. What kind of stronger?"

"Eighty proof."

"Eighty proof. Like Grey Goose eighty proof?"

"Exactly. It's time for me to hear that tape."

TBC

**A/N** Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy Spring, happy anything you can hang onto to get you through these terrible times.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

**A/N** One of the people reading this story is a nurse on the front lines, working under conditions unimaginable to most of us, in a hospital near New York City. Every one of her patients has COVID-19. Many do not make it, despite the highly-trained and loving care that she and others provide. She has a family, but when she gets home she stays in the guest room, away from them. I dedicate this chapter to her, which has no worth except to let her know that she has my limitless admiration and gratitude.

Gates takes a few sips of vodka before she nods at Castle and he starts the tape. When it comes to an end she stares out across the room, takes another sip from her glass, and says, "Again, please. Play it again." She listens, has some more of her drink, and listens to the cassette a third time. When it stops, she sighs, dips her head, and sets her glass on a coaster on the coffee table.

"Detective Beckett," she says, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "Kate. I owe you an apology. When you were interrogating McManus, just before the bombing that injured you, I pulled you out of the room. I was furious at you. Told you it was over."

"I remember. I was furious at having to be Bracken's body guard. He killed my mother and I was stuck with trying to save his life."

"I can understand that, now. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. I wanted to get him so badly. But I, we, we wanted to protect Montgomery. too. And. It just–" She pauses to look first at Castle, then at the boys before she directs herself to her boss. "There's something else you should know. When I was in the hospital, in the ICU, Bracken came to see me in the middle of the night. It was barely 24 hours after I'd gotten there."

"What? How did he even get in?"

"A US Senator for the great State of New York? A man who's gunning, literally, for the Presidency? Easy. He called it a perk of his job. Probably flashed his ID and his artificially white smile at the nurses' station. Anyway, he came into my room and threatened me. A thinly veiled threat. He said, 'It's a dangerous world out there. You never know when you might need a friend'."

"What did you do?"

"Told him plenty, including that he was no friend of mine. I rang for a nurse, who appeared instantly. I asked her to show him out, and I whispered just loud enough for him to hear that calling for help was a perk of being an ICU patient. That I got immediate trash removal."

A guffaw and a snort erupt simultaneously, from two different sources. "Sorry," the two other detectives in the room say, also simultaneously.

"Don't apologize," she says, and she means it. "We all need a laugh."

"It's just that I never knew that part. When you told Ryan and me before, you left that out."

"Best part of the story," Castle adds. "Badassery at its finest."

"Well, uh, there's another thing that comes under the category of badassery, or idiocy. Recklessness on my part, I guess, but–"

Now it's Gates who smiles. "You? Reckless? Astonishing. But go on, please."

"I told you about my meeting, with Bracken in the hotel kitchen."

"Yes."

"My cell phone. In my pocket. I taped everything. I knew it was a risk, but I took it. It's been in Castle's safe since I got here, but I'd played it so often before then that I knew it by heart. He was so careful, that son of a bitch, not to admit a thing, except that he did, at the end, you know? He said, 'Here's what you don't understand – it's not who has the gun, it's who has the power. Do you really think that's you?' He thought that he had me, but that's when I told him that I had the file."

"I remember the rest," Gates says. "So, two tapes. You've got him. He could hire the five best attorneys in New York and collectively they couldn't persuade a jury that he's not guilty." She suddenly switches her focus to the array of snacks on the table and zeroes in on the macadamia nuts. "Ordinarily I don't eat this late. Or drink, either. But if any time merits an exception, this is it" She chews one nut so thoroughly that Kate wonders if if Gates's teeth are beginning to grind down. "Does Castle feed you like this every night?"

"Pretty much."

"Dunno why you don't weigh two hundred pounds."

"PT, Sir. Every day. For hours." She does not add, and sex. For the last two weeks, lots and lots and lots of sex. Including, yesterday, on the very sofa where they're now sitting.

"On that note, I think I'll try one of those pita chips," Gates says. She pulverizes that, too. "All right, back to what brought me here. When you called you said you were afraid to take the tape, the one that was in the elephants, anywhere."

"I am. I don't trust the guy not to have me under surveillance. Especially since his hospital visit."

"How about if I take it?"

"_Now?_" She's so terrified at the suggestion that she can almost smell the cortisol and adrenaline rushing to her heart.

The Captain shakes her head. "No. Not now, and not even me. What I mean is, what if I have someone from the NYPD pick it up, say, tomorrow?"

"Sir, that's–"

She holds up a hand to stop him. "I know what you're going to say, Mister Castle. No one in an NYPD uniform is going to come knocking on the door. It will be someone from One PP who will arrived dressed as an electrician. In a van that appears to be from a legitimate electrician. If someone checks out the name, they'll find the business. And if they look at Yelp, they'll find several happy customers and a few disgruntled ones. All as fictitious as your Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook–more so, in fact–but completely credible."

Kate saw it, she's sure she saw it. The tiniest, almost indiscernible wink at Castle at the Heat and Rook reference. Gates has surprised her all night.

"What about my other tape?" She realizes that she's picking at the edge of the sofa cushion. Her nerves are shot. "From the hotel kitchen."

"Hold on to it. If it's needed, fine. But I'd just as soon that no one else knows that you're the one responsible for the scar on his face."

They talk a bit more about the case against Bracken, and what steps to take next. Kate is suddenly spent, emotionally and physically. "Sorry, everyone. I've run out of steam. Gotta go to bed, but please stay as long as you like."

Gates rises. "Not at all. I kept you up too long. Besides, my husband must be wondering why I've been here–" she glances at her watch. "Oh, my Lord. It's almost midnight."

"We're outta here, too," Espo says.

"Let me walk you to the door, Sir," Kate says. "I'm afraid it's more like hop you to the door. I've been sitting too long."

"Guys?" Castle says. "We've got leftovers. Come to the kitchen with me. Gonna send you home with a lot of beer too."

She shoots him a grateful look. Clearly he understands that it would be good for her to have a moment alone with Gates.

"Now you're talkin'," she hears Espo say. "You always buy the good stuff. Not like Ryan with that five ninety-nine a six-pack crap."

"Hey! Jenny and I are trying to get pregnant, remember? Saving up for a baby. What's your excuse, Jav?"

When she and Gates reach the door she says, "Thank you again, Sir. For everything. Did you drive? If you need a cab, Mickey the doorman, will be glad to get you one."

"Believe it or not, for about three seconds I considered walking home, to clear my head. But I've already thought better of it. It's a taxi for me" She squeezes Kate's elbow and lowers her voice. "Thank you for trusting me on this. I know that wasn't easy."

"I didn't think it would be, but it was."

Gates smiles. "One more thing. I could tell that you were itching to hold Castle's hand while we listened to the tapes."

"What?" _What? Whatwhatwhatwhat?_

"I may not have been working as a detective the last few years, but I like to think that my powers of observation haven't diminished. I'm very happy for both of you. I'm sure you never expected to hear me say that, and if you'd told me a few months ago that I would, I'd have ordered a psych eval for you. Just don't kiss him in the precinct. We'll talk tomorrow. I hope you sleep well. You've earned it."

She knows that she's exhausted, but as she closes the door she also knows that she's not dreaming.

Ten minutes later, teeth brushed, she's lying in bed, and Castle walks in. "C'm over here," she says groggily.

"Gladly," he says, dropping down next to her.

"Hold my hand. I have to tell you what Gates said when she was leaving."

When she finishes, he rolls onto his side and pulls her against his chest. "So she knew, huh?"

"Yup."

"All that time we wasted sneaking around."

"Some of that was fun."

"Yeah," he says, nuzzling her neck. "Before you fall asleep, I'm going to kiss you. Since I can't kiss you in the precinct."

"Mmmm," she says afterwards. "Nice kiss. So nice."

The next thing she's aware of is the smell of coffee, inches from her nose. She opens her eyes and sees Castle standing next to her, holding two mugs.

"Hey."

"Morning."

"Is it late?"

"Depends. To my mother, quarter to nine is godawful early."

"It's almost nine?" She pushes herself up until she's resting against the headboard. "That's–"

"At least two hours later than usual for you. I know." He sits on the edge of the bed and hands her a coffee. His voice turns serious, but also gentle. "But, Kate, there wasn't a thing about yesterday that was usual. It redefined emotional roller coaster. I'm relieved that you could sleep so long. I would've waited to bring you coffee, but the so-called electrician is coming around ten and I knew that you'd want to be dressed and ready for that."

"Thanks," she says, cupping his chin and running her thumb under his eye. "For everything. Everything. But you look as if you were up all night."

"I was. A lot of it, anyway. You've been living with this for fourteen years. I'm a relative newcomer. Fourteen years is a long time to be on any road, on any quest, and I thank God you're almost at the end of it." He leans over to rest his mug on the nightstand. "I don't think about God much. Some days I'm a believer, or on the fringes of belief, and some days I reject the whole idea. Most of the time I give Him, Her, it, no thought. Last night, really early this morning, I kept running over and over what Montgomery said to you in the hangar, when he was confessing to you. I wrote it down right after because I wanted to remember it. As if I could forget it. But it was playing in my head for hours, I could hear him. It's as if he were right here. He said, 'When you walked into the Twelfth, I felt the hand of God. I knew He was giving me another chance, and I thought, "If I could protect you the way I should have protected her".' " His voice cracks. "I tried protecting you, and look where it got you. What a damn nightmare. But now it's going to be over, isn't it?"

"It is, yeah. It is." She runs her hand through his messy hair and kisses him. "It's going to be all right."

His smile is watery. "Well, look at you, being the optimistic one. That's supposed to be my job."

"You know what they say, Castle. It's good to do a little role-reversal once in a while. Keeps a relationship strong."

That makes him laugh. "Does that mean you're going to make breakfast for the ersatz electrician and us?"

"Nope. Only so much role-reversal I can do in a day. Besides, I have to shower and get dressed, which as you may have observed takes me longer than usual."

"I have very happily observed that, especially the taking longer to get your clothes on part. I could observe that forever." He points through the open door. "I'll see you out there when you're done."

Shortly before 10 the panel truck from Rosselli Electrics: You'll Get a Charge Out of Us parks in a conveniently newly vacated spot in front of 346 Broome Street. The driver gets out, retrieves a bag from the seat next to him, locks the truck, and walks–slightly favoring his left leg–into the building. After a brief chat with the doorman, who then calls Castle, he takes the elevator up.

"Good to meet you, Rosselli," Castle says, shaking the man's hand and letting him in. "Is it really Rosselli?"

"Nah. Falcone. Rosselli was the name of the girl I was in love with in seventh grade."

"Yeah? She broke your heart, eh? What happened to Miss Rosselli?"

"She became Mister Rosselli."

"That'll do it. Ah, here's Beckett."

After the usual pleasantries she says, "I hope you haven't eaten. We thought we should keep you up here for a while as if you really were doing some electrical work, so Castle made us breakfast."

"Sounds good. Smells good, too." He runs his index finger over his mustache. "Beckett. Beckett. I knew the name was familiar, but now that I see you. Mike Royce was your T.O. back in the day, right?"

"He was. You knew him?"

"I did. We were at the eight-six together when we were rookies. I had a beer with the two of you one night. Long time ago. We were watching the World Series–"

"Kurt Schilling! The bloody sock! Of course. I remember you."

Castle coughs. "Fascinating as reminiscing about a bloody sock might be–and by the way I have no idea what you're talking about–it doesn't strike me as the best topic of conversation over chocolate waffles."

She and Castle know that Falcone has been fully briefed, and they'd just as soon not talk about the tape over chocolate waffles, either. Instead, they play Castle's favorite game, World's Dumbest Perp, which keeps all of them entertained for close to an hour.

"You got anything that needs rewiring while I'm here? Strictly lamps and toasters, but I can handle them. Worked for my uncle's repair shop in Astoria when I was in high school."

Castle laughs. "Thanks, we're good."

Beckett hands Falcone the tape, which he secures in a small metal box that he zips inside an interior pocket of his tool bag. "You made a copy, didn't you?"

"Absolutely," she says. "It's not evidence, but it's comfortable backup. It's already in the safe."

She's fidgety after he leaves.

"You all right?" Castle asks.

"Fine. Sort of. I'll just feel better once I know that Falcone has delivered the tape."

As if on cue, his phone rings. He puts it on speaker.

"Hello?"

"Mister Castle, Joe Rosselli. I moved some jobs around. We can do that upgrade on your office wiring tomorrow. That good? Me and one of my men could be there at nine."

"That's perfect. Thanks. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly."

"My pleasure. See you tomorrow."

"Right. Bye."

"Tomorrow, Castle," she says. "We can get Bracken anytime after nine tomorrow. Gates and the chief wanted to get all the paperwork ready before the arrest."

"Where are you going to arrest him? His office?"

"No. Somewhere there's a big crowd. I waited a long time for this and I want an audience. I want to haul him out onto the street in cuffs. I want his humiliation to be public. Complete and public."

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

Throughout the day she swings from euphoria to anxiety, triumph to exhaustion, rage to relief. "I feel like I'm stuck in a loop of the first paragraph of _A Tale of Two Cities_," she says when they sit down to dinner. " 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' Again and again. I'm sorry, Castle, I must be driving you crazy."

"It takes a lot more than that to drive me crazy," he replies, reassuringly. "You drove me totally crazy for four years, you know, until that night you turned up at our front door last spring. Of course it was my front door then, not ours, but I was ready to ask you to move in the next morning when you walked into the bedroom in my shirt, all sex on legs, carrying coffee."

"Four years, eh?" she says, spearing a stalk of asparagus. "Every day? Did I drive you crazy every day?"

"You did, but you drove me much crazier at night."

"Hmm."

"Oh, definitely hmmm. That's when I invented Beckett Fantasyland."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"A very adult theme park, with the wildest rides imaginable. Not open to the public, just to me. But I closed it down, because Beckett Reality is so much better."

She adores him for doing this. She owes him more than she can ever pay. "Now that you mention it," she says, as if it had just sprung to mind, "I might have had a Castle Fantasyland."

"Only might have? I'm disappointed."

"Okay, not might. Did. It had some rules, though."

"You know I hate rules."

"You'd like these."

"I would?" He leans across the table until his nose nearly touches hers. "Try me."

She puts her fork on her plate. "How about this? No clothes allowed at any time. Wait, not true. No clothes allowed, but underwear was on occasion, because there were a couple of rides that required the tantalizing, slow removal of said underwear."

"You're right, I'd have no trouble with that one. What else?"

"You had to try every ride. Visit every attraction."

"Such as?"

"Well," she says, holding up one finger, "there was Slippery When Wet. Very popular." A second finger joins the first. "Cops and Rubbers. Ladies' Choice. Double Down." She grins. "Double Down was a favorite of ours. Then there was Ride 'em, Cowboy–"

"What about Ride 'em, Cowgirl?" His breath is hot on her face.

"Of course. And there was a food court."

"I should hope so. Did this food court have a name?"

"It did. All You Can Eat." She can see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows hard, and she whispers against his neck. "The meat was incredible. And fantastic fireballs. I was a sucker for those."

He reaches out and wraps his hand around her wrist. "God, you're good. Let's forget dinner."

"I already did."

It takes him maybe five seconds to get to her side of the table and scoop her up from her chair. Some time later in bed, she doesn't know or care when, with her head resting on his bicep, she says, "Thank you."

"And thank _you_."

"I meant thank you for doing what you were doing at dinner. Trying to distract me, getting me to stop obsessing."

"I'd say it worked." She can feel him laugh silently, his arm vibrating beneath her cheek.

"You're right." She's quiet for a long time after that, turning things over, assessing them from every angle and in every figurative light. She suddenly sits up straight. "I don't want to do it tomorrow."

"Do what?"

"Arrest Bracken."

"You don't?" He pulls himself up next to her, clearly surprised. "Why?"

"I waited a long time for this."

"I know. That's why I figured that at one second past nine tomorrow morning you'd be out of here with your handcuffs in your pocket, headed to wherever Bracken is."

"That's just it. I don't want it to be wherever. Like Washington, which is where he is a lot of the time, probably most. Or some other city, giving his heroic, good-guy stump speech that makes me want to throw up. I want it to be here, Castle. Here. New York. This is where he killed my mother and her colleagues and Roy and God knows how many other people. This is where I grew up and this is where I'm going to take him down."

"Do you have some place in mind? I bet we could get a hold of his schedule."

"Are you hungry?"

"Am I hungry?"

"This isn't the food court at Castle Fantasyland, but I happen to know that there's a delicious dinner on the table out there that's almost untouched, and while we eat it I'll tell you my idea."

"I can reheat it in two minutes."

"Which is about how long it will take me to get up from here and out there."

He jumps out of bed like a kid who just heard Santa coming down the chimney. "This is fantastic," he says. "I feel like we're back at the precinct."

"Except it smells a lot better and the food doesn't come from a vending machine."

"Plus we can eat in our underwear and I get to kiss you."

"That, too."

"Should I get out a murder board?"

"I'm not planning to kill him, Castle, just put his ass in prison for the rest of his unforgivable life."

"Okay then."

While they're having their meal she lays out her plan. He stops her a few times with a question, but that's all. She's utterly calm. "I'll talk to Gates tomorrow morning, but I don't see a problem, do you?"

"It's simple and it's perfect. I can't wait to see you in action. You're positive he's going to be there?"

"We'll check, of course, but I am. He's not going to miss the chance to preen. Bright lights, big city, all that. Besides, he automatically gets an invitation, not because he's a Senator but because he's a member of the board."

"And you don't mind waiting another ten days?"

She shakes her head."Ten more days for him to think he's gotten away with it. Ten more days for me to get stronger. And figure out what to wear."

One morning a week later her physical therapist is on the way over and Castle is on the way out. "I didn't think it was possible for you to work even harder than you have been," he says as he grabs his keys from a bowl on the table. "I have a couple of errands after my book meeting, so if I'm not back before Mark leaves, say hi from me."

"I will. Come here," she says, reaching for his elbow and pulling him towards her so she can give him a kiss. "Mmm, you taste of strawberries. See you later."

After his meeting Castle stops in a diner for a late lunch, pleased to find a tiny, two-person booth in the back corner. He sits on one side and puts his package on the other. While he eats a BLT, he thinks about the fact that he and Kate have been together virtually 24/7 for close to three months. Even when they're apart–he's writing, she's doing PT–they're under the same roof. It's all but a miracle that they've had so few cross moments, and most of them are a result of her exhaustion and pain. She gets a pass on those. He'd be the worst patient in the world; he has stamina that matches hers, and could go head-to-head with her on determination in some areas, but not in this one. Both her orthopedist and her physical therapist–and probably Burke, but he's not privy to those conversations–have said how far ahead of schedule she is in recovery. He wonders if part of her motivation is to have to rely on him less. She hates that she can't clear the table or make the bed or take a turn grocery shopping. She apologizes for it at least once a day, despite assurances that it's nothing. And it is. It doesn't matter to him a bit, except that he hates that it bothers her.

"More coffee?" the waitress asks, appearing at his elbow with a thermal jug.

"What? Oh, sorry, my mind was a million miles away. Thanks, yes, I'd love a refill."

His mind wasn't a million miles away at all. More like fifteen blocks. He's been in love with Kate for a long time, way longer than he'd ever been in love before. Longer, deeper. He loves what a complex person she is, yet how simple his love for her is. He stares into his coffee. _This is for keeps._ He rejoices in everything in their relationship, but it wouldn't be where it is, they wouldn't be where they are, he wouldn't be where he is, if she hadn't suggested–pleaded, actually–that he see a psychiatrist. What astonishes him is that his therapy, which had been very brutal at the beginning, has made him more of a realist without in any way diluting his optimism.

He hadn't noticed that the waitress had at some point slipped the bill onto the table. Today is a great day, he thinks, looking across the table at the package that he'd collected before lunch. An amazing day. Not as amazing as the day that will dawn in roughly 57 hours, the day that Kate will finally arrest Bracken, but an amazing day. He takes a $50 bill from his wallet, slips it under the edge of his plate, and gets up. Time to go home.

When he unlocks the door he knows that Mark has gone because his jacket is no longer on the coat rack. "Kate?" he calls. No answer. "Beckett?" He's a little concerned. He drapes his package, a garment bag, over the back of a chair and heads for the bedroom. The door is open but the bathroom door is closed. "Kate? You okay?"

"Yes." She opens the door a crack. "Would you sit on the bed, please?"

"Uh, okay."

"And wait there."

"Sure."

"And shut your eyes."

"Will do."

"No peeking."

"Roger, ten four."

He wants nothing more than to peek, but he doesn't. He hears her clear her throat.

"Okay. You can look."

It's one of the most beautiful, thrilling things he has ever seen. She's wearing an ancient, faded tee shirt of his that's much too big for her. The neck is frayed in two places, there's a hole in a seam, and a large stain of something vaguely green spreads out a few inches above the hem. Her hair is half out of its pony tail. She has no make up on. Her pale face is sweaty. And she is standing on two feet, with no crutches. "Look, ma," she says softly, "no hands."

His newly opened eyes flood with tears. He rises up on his own two feet, which feel as shaky as her voice sounds, reaches her in four strides, wraps his arms around her, and sobs into her hair. "Thank God. Thank you, God." He pulls his head back so he can see her. "Sorry, sorry. You are incredible."

"Thanks," she says, huskily. "Surprise. This is my surprise present for you."

"Best present I've ever had."

"Better than the one I gave you at midnight on your birthday?"

"Memorable as that was, and always will be, yes."

"Want to see me walk across the room?" Her voice is half shyness, half pride.

"Damn right I do."

She goes ten steps across and ten back, with just a slight limp. "How do you think Bracken will react when he sees me coming at him like this?"

"I think he'll die from the shock, God willing. No, I take it back. I'd rather he died in prison after at least two decades of misery." He sits on the end of the bed and pulls her onto his lap. "I can't believe you can walk on your own."

"I've been working on it for a couple of weeks but didn't want you to know until I could really do it. Really walk, not like some old lady tottering fifteen inches. Doctor Rosen said I should be able to start running in a couple of weeks, probably less."

"Your turn to wait," he says, sliding her off his thighs. "I have a surprise for you. No peeking."

"I never peek."

"Oh, yes you do. I've caught you peeking at me plenty."

"True, but it's always when you're naked."

He's back in an instant, the garment bag dangling from two fingers. "You can look now."

She claps her hands. "Oh, my God, that's from Jason Wu. You brought me something from Jason Wu?"

"Ever since we watched the inaugural ball in January and you kept exclaiming over Michelle Obama's dress, I've thought about it, and this seemed like the perfect time. I know you were trying to decide what to wear when you face Bracken, so, voila." He passes her the bag. "Want to try it on?"

He's never seen her open anything as fast as she does this. "Ohhh," she says, pulling out the red silk confection. "Ohhh, this is the most gorgeous thing ever."

"If you'll allow me a correction, you in that dress will be the most gorgeous thing ever."

She yanks off the tee shirt, lets it fall to the floor, and pulls the dress on over her head. Standing again she asks, "Could you get the zipper, please?"

"With indescribable pleasure," he replies. When he's done, he kisses her in the middle of her spine. In front the décolletage is sexy but relatively modest, but the dress leaves her entire back bare, dipping below the waist and stopping a few inches above the tailbone. "Come with me." He takes her hand and walks her into the bathroom, where she can see herself reflected innumerable times.

"Thank you," she says, turning to engulf him in a hug. "Thank you. I've never had anything like this in my life."

"Long overdue."

She lets go and looks down at her bare feet. "Can't wait until I can wear this in heels. It'll look so much better in heels."

"There are plenty of flats that will do for now. Why don't you look online? You've got three days and practically anyone can deliver overnight."

"Did anyone ever tell you," she asks, dipping her head to press her forehead against his chest, "that you're the best?"

Three days later, at 6:30 p.m., she calls her father to let him know what's about to happen. At seven on the dot, she and Castle leave the loft. She's in The Dress and he's in a tux, pushing her in the lightweight wheelchair she had been using on occasion during her recovery. They had agreed that it would be the best way to get her very close, very quickly, as well as maintain the ruse that she's not yet mobile. People can usually be depended on to move out of the path of a wheelchair.

Castle's Mercedes is at the curb; Esposito and Ryan are parked directly behind and they're waiting by the door.

"All set, Beckett?" Espo asks.

"All set."

"Big night."

"The biggest. Thanks for being here, you two. It means everything to me."

"Wow," Ryan says as she settles into the car. "You look great. It that a Jason Wu?"

"Wu who?" Espo asks, the wrong side of snide.

"Jason Wu, man. He's a designer."

"You're such a girl, bro."

"Yeah, well, Jenny has a picture of one of his dresses on her if-I-won-the-lottery poster board. If you knew anything about fashion you might have landed a beautiful woman by now."

"Let's roll, guys," Castle says, neatly collapsing the wheelchair and putting it in the trunk. "If we hit a lot of traffic you'll do lights and sirens, right?"

"Right. That's why we're going in front of you."

Their two-car caravan heads uptown. At 75th and Madison two more unmarkeds join them, and at 79th they pick up two patrol cars. They all turn west on 86th Street and then south on Fifth Avenue. The massive Metropolitan Museum of Art looms ahead of them on the right, lights blazing inside and out. There are mobs of onlookers, most behind barricades; limos and town cars are lined up headlight to taillight, disgorging A-list passengers at the majestic staircase on 82nd Street. Paparazzi are everywhere, and every media outlet has someone, or several someones, covering. It's the museum's annual benefit gala for their Costume Institute, and every fashionista, every card-carrying member of the glitterati, assorted other celebrities, and hangers-on, are on hand. The biggest names stop on the red carpet to show off whatever it is they're wearing. Fashion stakes are higher at this feeding frenzy than at almost any other event anywhere, any time, on the planet.

The six cars pull over to a stretch of curb that the NYPS had blocked off for them hours earlier. Just as Kate gets into the wheelchair they hear a scream from the crowd that ordinarily would have them reaching for their guns. "It's Kim Kardashian," Officer Hastings explains. She had requested and been granted duty here this evening: it was she who had let Beckett into the hotel where she'd confronted Bracken in the kitchen a year ago. "She and Kanye West just got out. She looks like she's gonna give birth before they finish dinner."

"Gonna be plenty of excitement without that," Castle says, his voice pitched low. "Should we get in position now?"

"Yes," Beckett says. "There's that sheltered place about fifty feet ahead. See it?"

"Yup."

"That's where you and I will be. All the guys will be right behind. He's due in fifteen minutes, and they keep a pretty tight schedule here or it's just chaos."

"You're sure the security detail is totally briefed? So they let you through at the right moment?"

"Yes. Castle, don't worry. They've got five undercovers in there with them."

"I know."

He's counting off seconds in his head. She's silently rehearsing what she'll say.

Her phone chirps. The text message is the shortest and most important that she's ever received. One word, one syllable, two letters:

**GO**

She nods at Castle and can't find her voice. He squeezes her shoulder, kisses her on the cheek, and wheels her to the spot from which she'll make her move. When Bracken comes into view, she gets up.

She's alone. Alone with Bracken. There's him, there's her. It's like the kitchen of the Widmark Hotel, except it isn't. Because he's standing on a red carpet, not a tiled floor, and they're not alone at all. It just feels that way, because to her they're the only two that matter at the moment. No one sees her, of course, they see only him. Cameras are flashing and whirring. "Over here, Senator!" "This way!" "Who designed your tuxedo, Senator Bracken?" He's posing. It's what he does best. He's a permanent false front over a rotten interior. A human Potemkin village. When someone shouts, "Will you come back when you're President?" and he nods and beams, she takes it as her cue, and moves towards him.

"Senator Bracken." She says it again, louder, her voice as steely as the barrel of a gun. "Senator Bracken!"

His head whips to the left. He's one of the slickest politicians ever, but this time he's unable to act quickly enough. His shock is evident. "You can't be here," he hisses. "And how can you be walking?"

She'd already opened her clutch and the cuffs are in her hand. "I found the tape. I found it. It's over."

Even though her focus is completely on him, she's aware that camera operators have shifted to cover her as well as him.

"Senator William Bracken." Physical therapy has actually sharpened her reflexes, and her upper body strength is even greater than before. In one quick move she has his arms behind his back. She feels the cuffs snap around his wrists, hears the satisfying click. She hopes all the light is glancing off the metal. "Senator Bracken, you are under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, and the murder of my mother, Johanna Beckett."

The undercover officers with the museum's security detail have peeled away to stand at one end of the staging area–a term she takes a moment to appreciate–and Esposito, Ryan, and a dozen NYPD officers have materialized at the other. Bracken is anything but stupid, and he keeps his mouth shut. He doesn't fight her as she takes him by the elbow and leads him away.

She hears a voice in the crowd say, "Who's that woman with him? His wife?" She has seldom been so grateful for comic relief, but she doesn't laugh. Most of the crowd is still gasping.

When she reaches Ryan and Espo, she says, "He's all yours. I have to go home and take a shower." As she lets go of Bracken she tells him, "I'm afraid the handcuffs tore the sleeve of your jacket. Ripped a button off, too. If this is a rented tux–and I bet it is so you could write it off on your taxes as a business expense–don't expect to get your deposit back."

She knows there's a mountain of paperwork to be done, but she's officially on leave. Even if she weren't, the mountain could wait until tomorrow. She can see Castle in the shadows, waiting, and she moves into his welcoming embrace. "You were spectacular. Your mother is so proud of you. I'm sure she's here."

"I couldn't have done it without you." She hangs on to him for what seems like a long time, and then tilts her head back. "Let's go home." One of the undercovers has taken care of the wheelchair for her. As she and Castle walk to their car she catches sight of Captain Gates, standing quietly near a barricade, two uniforms with her. She's not really surprised that Gates is there, but she is by the sight of her with her hand over her heart, eyes glistening. She nods in acknowledgement and mouths, "Thank you."

When they're in the car, Castle says, "Your cheeks are as red as your dress." He reaches for her hand and holds it all the way home. Neither one of them says a word.

"Could I sleep for a week?" she asks, as they enter the loft.

"Absolutely. But wouldn't you like something to eat before your hibernation? You haven't had anything since lunch."

"Okay." She follows him into the kitchen. "You know what I want? My mother's go-to snack."

"Do we have what you need for that?"

"We always do. Because it's the same as my go-to snack."

He smiles as he fetches a spoon from a drawer and a jar from a cabinet. "Here you go," he says, handing them to her. "I never knew that."

"A tablespoon of chunky peanut butter," she says, unscrewing the lid. "Nothing better in the world."

"Really?"

"Unless maybe a tablespoon of peanut butter in bed just before I conk out on your chest."

"I'm game."

"Thanks for not asking if I want to talk about it," she says a few minutes later from bed, where she's licking PB from the bowl of a spoon.

"I know better than that now."

"I know you do. Doesn't mean I shouldn't thank you."

He picks up the TV remote. "Do you want to watch the news?"

"Is it already on?"

"Not for at least an hour, but my educated guess is that we don't have to wait. I bet there's live coverage on every channel except the sports and movies ones, and maybe the one that shows reruns of _Perry Mason_, _M*A*S*H_, and _Full House_."

"Okay. But mute it, please."

She hates ABC, so he hits the button for NBC. There's a BREAKING NEWS! banner on the screen. A correspondent is reporting from the sidewalk outside the Met. Cut to the news room, where the anchorman asks her a question. About 30 seconds later a replay starts. Bracken is smiling, and then turning his head sharply. The footage is slightly wobbly, but quickly steadies.

"Want the sound on now?"

"Please."

_"…it's over. Senator William Bracken."_

"Oh, good," she says. "You can see the cuffs on the bastard."

_"Senator Bracken, you are under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, and the murder of my mother, Johanna Beckett."_

She rolls onto her side and puts her hand on his chest. "That's enough for me. Unless you want to watch."

"Don't need to. I was there." He clicks off the TV and puts his hand on top of hers. "The last thing I want you to hear before you fall asleep is this. I love you."

"I love you, too."

A moment later he gently takes the spoon from her hand, puts it on his night stand, and turns out the light. He doesn't move at all for hours, except to shift his head from time to time to make sure that she's there. That this is all true.

Two full, very full, days have passed since then. They haven't left the loft, but cops and the DA have come to them. The media are still camped outside the building. "Do you want to go to the Hamptons?" he asks after a late dinner. "Or some place else where we can hole up for a while? An island? A farmhouse in Ireland with sheep in the yard?"

"That sounds wonderful, especially the sheep part. Maybe in a week or so, but not just yet. I'm gonna get ready for bed." She pushes her chair away from the table, and trails her hand down his back. "I promise I'll do the dishes tomorrow."

"I'll make sure you have something that's as much of a pain in the butt to clean as a lasagne dish."

"You're on." She wiggles her fingers in a wave and he starts to stack the dishes.

It takes him seven or eight minutes to finish. After turning off the overhead light, he heads for the bedroom, surprised to see that it's dark. She must have been more tired than he'd realized. He tiptoes in, only to find that the bed is still made. He checks the bathroom, but she's not there, either. Had she gone upstairs for some reason? He hurries to the bottom of the staircase. "Kate? Kate?" He feels a chill on his neck. Something's wrong. When he hears a series of sharp knocks on the door, he freezes. Should he get his gun? Who's out there this late? Who got past the doorman?

"Who is it?"

"Beckett."

He yanks the door open. "You scared the wits out of me. What are you doing out there?"

She doesn't come in. Instead she looks seriously at him and asks, "Do you know what day it is?"

"Wednesday. Although in about an hour, it'll be Thursday."

"Not the day, the date." She still hasn't moved.

"May seventh."

"Right." She looks severe. Her voice is a little darker as she leans on those two words. "May seventh."

Oh. Oh. Holy shit. A year. It's been exactly a year. Now she's looking up at him through her lashes. He puts on an exasperated expression. "Beckett, what do you want?"

She vaults through the door and latches on to him. "You," she says, before kissing him even harder than she had last May seventh. She pulls back. "I just want you. Permanently. Forever. I want you forever, Castle. Will you marry me?"

"Yes. Yes, I will. Permanently. Forever."

**A/N** Thank you all so much for hanging in with this story during a tough time for everyone. I hope that you and your families are safe and well. Special thanks to Madelynn one for the excellent medical advice, and to Roadrunnerz for her inspired prompt, "Beckett gets hurt when she saves Bracken from the car bomb." I'm going to return to Eliot now: I need a stress-free story for a while! Hope to post a chapter later this week.


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